[HN Gopher] Bypassing regulatory locks, hacking AirPods and Fara...
___________________________________________________________________
Bypassing regulatory locks, hacking AirPods and Faraday cages
Author : rithvikvibhu
Score : 558 points
Date : 2024-11-12 18:50 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (lagrangepoint.substack.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (lagrangepoint.substack.com)
| post_break wrote:
| Does this reset itself after a certain amount of time or is it
| one and done? I'd be worried about the feature being removed when
| the iPad or airpods decide they've been in India for too long.
| thel3l wrote:
| Heya! One of the authors here.
|
| Nope, its a one time thing. When the feature is enabled, a flag
| is set on the iCloud account, so you can travel anywhere and
| have it work. At the same time, a EQ profile is pushed to the
| transparency mode of the Airpods, enabling the hearing aid
| features.
|
| Once done, it sticks with the Airpods, unless you reset them.
|
| However, an interesting quirk is that if you enable this on
| someone's airpods, and _their_ device/account does not have it
| 'available', they wont be able to tweak the settings on their
| device.
| post_break wrote:
| Very cool, glad it sticks.
| ilt wrote:
| I live in India and I have been using hearing aid feature
| since at least March when I bought Airpods Pro. Only that it
| wasn't called as such earlier. It uses the audiogram I had
| provided it which it used to create a customized equalizer
| for my hearing disability. I am sure they must have improved
| upon the capability in new OS versions but functionally it
| has been present for a while now.
| _rs wrote:
| I suppose the difference is 1st party support for creating
| the audiogram, plus the clearance from the US gov to market
| it the way they want as OTC hearing aids
| lathiat wrote:
| It also applied the same profile to both ears, which
| matters for some. My hearing loss is highly asymmetric.
| ilt wrote:
| Does it still do that? I understand it had problems with
| asymetric hearing loss earlier.
| _rs wrote:
| I wonder if the flag gets reset every so often if the device
| doesn't think it's in the US for a long period of time. I've
| heard Apple considered that for some of the other EU
| restrictions
| rtkwe wrote:
| Probably not to account for people spending lots of time
| outside the US. The main restriction is not selling items
| with particular features outside of approved countries but
| them getting used after being bought elsewhere isn't
| usually a big deal. India doesn't care about my Grandma
| wearing her hearing aids because they're not approved in
| India and if the government doesn't care where's the
| incentive for Apple to break functionality for customers?
| pomian wrote:
| Looking forward to further write ups on faraday cages, design and
| uses. That was great what you did with the air pods.
| thel3l wrote:
| Hey! I'm Rithwik, one of the authors of the article, happy to
| answer questions etc!
| carbonguy wrote:
| Mainly just wanted to say, this is an absolutely fantastic hack
| and I loved reading about it - thank you for sharing!
|
| I guess if I have one question, it would be... what else are
| you planning to do with your new Faraday cage?
| thel3l wrote:
| Thank you for reading and the kind words! We're almost
| looking forward to this loophole being shut down to really
| make things a tad bit more challenging haha
|
| We've got some ideas for the Faraday cage--a whole bunch of
| networks research and hacking that we can do without messing
| up live systems! It's also really nice to be able to test a
| device in isolation, without worrying about whether it's
| phoning back home in some way.
| ryandrake wrote:
| > We're almost looking forward to this loophole being shut
| down to really make things a tad bit more challenging haha
|
| This is a great attitude in the face of a pretty sad 2024
| reality: that the manufacturer of a device is expected to
| intentionally go out of its way to remotely stop users from
| using the device they bought in the way they want to use
| it.
| itsarnavb wrote:
| I'm thinking of making it easy to "teleport" to any location
| within the cage
|
| Imagine typing in coordinates or picking a location on a map,
| and then suddenly your phone or any other device is at that
| location inside the cage, by a combination of GPS, cellular
| and WiFi spoofing
|
| My former manager called it a portal haha:
| https://x.com/masadfrost/status/1856467695606345756
| vintagedave wrote:
| Awesome article. This kind of hacking casually showing iOS app
| behavior is another world, especially because I thought they
| were so locked down. How did you get started, any
| recommendations?
|
| Since you did not end up having bought yourself a very
| expensive set of earphones, what earphones do you use -- or
| want to get?
| thel3l wrote:
| haha, I think I've got many miles to go before I'm qualified
| to answer this :')
|
| I've just been hacking away at things since I was in middle
| school, am lucky that there's some transfer. LLMs have also
| been a huge unlock--really cool to be able to try things at
| near speed of thought!
|
| > what earphones do you use -- or want to get? I'm very happy
| with my Shure Aonic 3s, a very loyal IEMs guy!
| username135 wrote:
| In the true spirit of 2600!
| enjaydee wrote:
| Maybe I missed it but did you make or buy the Faraday cage?
| thel3l wrote:
| We built it ourselves actually!
|
| The first prototype was just aluminium foil, tape and hope,
| but we wanted something more solid so we built one out of
| ndeg100 copper mesh and some 2020 aluminium extrusions!
| avidiax wrote:
| You can use a microwave oven as a very cheap faraday cage.
| Just don't turn it on.
| staticfish wrote:
| I assume he needed it to have a small opening in the cage
| to shove the Raspberry Pi through it (to broadcast new
| SSIDs)
| wiml wrote:
| The door of a microwave typically doesn't form an RF-
| tight seal. Instead there's a groove that forms a
| resonant trap at the microwave's operating frequency. So
| it'll probably block 2.4-GHz ISM-band stuff like
| Bluetooth (I don't actually know how wide the trap band
| is compared to a BT or wifi channel), but outside that
| band all bets are off.
| NavinF wrote:
| You are replying to the article author. He knows you can
| use a microwave oven as a very cheap faraday cage. He
| tried that, but it wasn't good enough.
| tumblestick wrote:
| Hi Rithwik -- great work. My Nana would have been thrilled to
| know this was possible :)
|
| If I can ask -- what program did you use to generate the code
| maps in your article?
| _rs wrote:
| They look a lot like the graphs that Hopper produces :)
| saagarjha wrote:
| It's Binary Ninja: https://binary.ninja
| thel3l wrote:
| Binary Ninja: https://binary.ninja/ :)
|
| Think someone has already linked it below!
| JSR_FDED wrote:
| Loved the article, thank you for sharing. How happy are the
| grandparents with the hearing aid functionality? Is it working
| well for them and how is the battery life?
| thel3l wrote:
| It's all too early to tell, but we'll know after a week or
| so. The battery life thing is not seeming like a big problem,
| since the existing device needs batteries changed every few
| days or charged every night.
|
| As for the sound quality, a few of our grandparents have
| tried it, and while they say it sounds 'different', it's not
| necessarily bad. Grandma was actually quite content even with
| just the old EQ settings that shipped pre iOS 18 for folks
| with hearing issues.
|
| Thanks for the kind words!
| dmcc365 wrote:
| The hearing test on one of the images shows a 'profound
| loss'. Does the hearing aid feature work for such a
| significant loss, or does it disable for any result beyond
| moderate loss?
| gorbypark wrote:
| I'm a bit perplexed about region handling, maybe you could shed
| some light on it. I have an iPhone from Canada, with a Canadian
| Apple account (Canadian CC/billing address, set location to
| Canada in App Store), but live in Spain for the last few years.
| I am still fully "Canadian" according to Apple. I don't get any
| of the 3rd party App Store stuff that's region locked to the
| EU, and have access to Apple Intelligence and other features
| not available in the EU.
|
| I can't give the hearing aid feature a test because it's not
| available in either Canada or Spain, but I am wondering what
| the difference is (if any) between the hearing aid region lock
| and other geo-locked/geo-enabled features Apple has.
| withinboredom wrote:
| You can login with a second account that is an EU account, my
| wife went this route. You get the best of both worlds.
|
| I ended up transferring my account to an EU account (pro-tip,
| you may be on the phone with Apple support for 6+ hours if
| the automation fails). I still have access to both US-
| specific features (like Apple Cash in USD and the feature in
| this article) and EU-specific features (like the new app
| store stuff).
| dnh44 wrote:
| That's a really awesome hack, thanks for sharing. I was
| slightly surprised that you had to go as far as spoofing a wifi
| network actually but it's great you figured it out.
| kristofferR wrote:
| Does anyone know what the Hearing Protection mode does? It's not
| available in Norway (or anywhere outside of NAmerica).
|
| I've used the AirPods Pro 2 as hearing protection for some stuff
| before, it works fine. Is it just due to the words ("Hearing
| Protection") which they are only allowed to use only in America
| or is it actually better than regular Pro 2 noise-cancelling?
| grahamj wrote:
| I'm pretty sure all that's new is the hearing test app and
| marketing. AirPods already had these features.
|
| From listening to it work HP sounds to me like multiband
| compression, in other words divide up the audible spectrum into
| multiple bands and apply compression on each one individually.
| Again it was already doing this though.
| tzs wrote:
| > Hearing aids typically cost anywhere from [?] 50,000 to upwards
| of [?] 8L depending on the correction capability
|
| For those who don't recognize the [?] symbol it is the symbol for
| the Indian Rupee and an "L" after a number means 100,000, so [?]
| 8L is [?] 800,000.
|
| At current exchange rates that puts hearing aids in India from
| $600 to upwards of $9,500.
|
| AirPods Pro 2 are [?] 24,900 ($295).
| hoistbypetard wrote:
| Thanks for posting this. I recognized the currency symbol but
| was confused by the "L".
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| The Indian numbering system marks odd power of ten, _i.e._ 10
| ^ {1, 3, 5, 7}. Unit, thousand, lakh, crore [1].
|
| Ours, on the other hand, does it mod 3, _e.g._ 10 ^ {1, 3, 6,
| 9}. Thousands, millions, billions, _et cetera_.
|
| [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_numbering_system
| eru wrote:
| > Ours, on the other hand, does it mod 3, e.g. 10 ^ {1, 3,
| 6, 9}. Thousands, millions, billions, et cetera.
|
| To make matters more confusing, for American English it
| goes millions, billions, trillions. For British English it
| used to go millions, milliards, billions, billiards,
| trillions, trilliards. (That 'long scale' is still the way
| German used to work ten years ago. No clue if it changed in
| the meantime.)
| andreareina wrote:
| I still mourn the long scale. A billion is obviously a
| million millions.
| SushiHippie wrote:
| Thanks! In germany we use the long scale, and this is the
| first time it clicks.
|
| "Eine Billion" is Million2 bi -> 2 "Eine Billiarde" is
| 1000 * Million2 "Eine Trillion" is million3 tri -> 3
| "Eine Trilliarde" is 1000 * Million3 And so on
|
| Yes I knew what a million, milliard, billion, billiarde
| and so on are, but it never made click that the long
| scale makes so much sense.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| I feel like at that point, I would rather just use
| scientific notation (10^x).
|
| I also like the easy suffix for thousand (k), million
| (M), billion (B), trillion (T), quadrillion (Q) for
| written conversation. $10B revenue, 5k liters, 300M
| people, etc.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| It is less intuitive for me as an outsider that a
| trillion would be a million million millions instead of a
| billion billions
| Lio wrote:
| Haven't we given up on our scale in the UK to match the
| US system?
|
| i.e. the milliard was replaced with the US billion.
| Lalabadie wrote:
| Anecdotally, a milliard in French is a billion in
| English.
| greggsy wrote:
| I'm not across the scope of hearing aid technology, but what
| does the product at that upper tier actually look like, and how
| much does it cost in another country?
|
| I'm envisioning some highly specialised and tuned implant at
| that price.
| bayindirh wrote:
| You generally get a custom mold for your ear canals and a
| specially tuned DSP for your frequency curves + BT connection
| to your phone for calls, at least. Your device can be retuned
| over and over as long as it functions, too.
|
| What drives the prices up is a multitude of factors: High end
| DSPs, micro speakers which can do good sound reproduction at
| required frequencies, relatively low sales volume, R&D
| expenses and of course an insatiable appetite for profits.
|
| These things always cost and arm and a leg in here, too.
| TrickyRick wrote:
| Not to mention that this is paid by insurance in many
| countries which means there is little incentive for
| individuals to shop around.
| bayindirh wrote:
| It might be, but in my country, you buy them for the most
| occasions. I'm not aware if any insurance policy pays for
| them, even.
| userbinator wrote:
| _It appears that the Hearing Aid feature is actually an equalizer
| preset that is pushed to the AirPods and will replace your
| transparency mode._
|
| Apple could've just not marketed these as "hearing aids" or used
| the medical terminology, as every other TWS with parametric EQ
| and transparency mode can do the same thing, and they wouldn't
| have the regulatory hawks going after them. They only lose the
| marketing edge, but perhaps that was a huge calculated risk.
|
| There's an incredible amount of processing power and flexibility
| in these things. Even the sub-$10 ones using the infamous JieLi
| SoCs - a 160MHz 32-bit computer in each ear. I'm surprised there
| hasn't yet been any TWS advertised with open-source firmware,
| although there's been some work in the usual Chinese (and
| Russian) communities on customisations.
| nfriedly wrote:
| > _I 'm surprised there hasn't yet been any TWS advertised with
| open-source firmware_
|
| Let me introduce you to the PineBuds Pro:
| https://pine64.com/product/pinebuds-pro-open-firmware-capabl...
| userbinator wrote:
| _User can flash in PINE64 community open firmware when
| becomes[sic] available._
|
| I did manage to find the firmware, but it says that it
| doesn't have ANC, which the factory firmware does. Good start
| nonetheless.
| aftbit wrote:
| >Excessive flashing Pinebuds can potentially brick the
| device.
|
| Jeez that's not great. Hard to develop on these devices when
| too many flashes kills them.
| userbinator wrote:
| The flash on these SoCs is usually designed to be
| programmed once at the factory, and then perhaps the
| occasional firmware update. Endurance is in the ~100 cycles
| range.
| cheschire wrote:
| They may have been trying to target the crowd that uses FSA/HSA
| to pay for medical related expenses.
| darreninthenet wrote:
| But can you play Doom on them?
| emmelaich wrote:
| Is that the only concern? That's good because Apple probably
| won't go and turn the feature off.
|
| I was worried that there might have been some other regulatory
| concern, perhaps to do with volume. Though I can't think what
| that might be.
| justinclift wrote:
| For anyone else wondering, apparently "TWS" means "True
| Wireless Stereo":
|
| https://audiochamps.com/what-does-tws-mean/
|
| So, Bluetooth.
| notpushkin wrote:
| Bluetooth headphones have many form factors. TWS in
| particular means you have two buds that aren't joined in any
| way.
| userbinator wrote:
| This is what a non-TWS Bluetooth earphone looks like:
|
| https://5.imimg.com/data5/SELLER/Default/2023/5/311562137/U
| E...
| wongarsu wrote:
| Or more commonly:
|
| https://kagi.com/proxy/1462421?c=3_iinnNGr4mThI2-fwchjJtC
| nBS...
| makeitdouble wrote:
| > They only lose the marketing edge
|
| This is a bigger deal than it may sound. Apple isn't operating
| in a vacuum, sony[0] and bose are also targeting the market and
| they'll also probably do their marketing push as they see fit.
|
| Apple only having a "kinda works as a hearing aid" is a
| sizeable disadvantage when the other brands will have posters
| in prominent places at sales points. Apple would still win on
| online sales and people who don't need that much reliability of
| course.
|
| [0] https://electronics.sony.com/otc-hearing-aids
| criddell wrote:
| How do Sony or Bose have any kind of retail advantage? What
| stores that sell Sony and Bose don't also sell Apple stuff?
| Plus Apple has their own stores which make more money per
| square foot than just about any other retailer.
| talldayo wrote:
| Sony has great audio codecs and doesn't treat my Linux
| desktop as a second-class citizen. I have zero reason to
| even consider Airpods as a serious alternative for as long
| as they treat multipoint bluetooth as an optional feature.
|
| Once you factor price into the equation, there's very
| little reason for an educated customer to pick the Airpods
| besides marketing. Apple doesn't give people a good reason
| unless they already own thousands of dollars in other Apple
| hardware.
| hofo wrote:
| Because they're about to sell their products as hearing
| aids due to the recent OTC hearing aid regulation change.
| mananaysiempre wrote:
| Funnily enough, the company that bought out the consumer
| audio division of Sennheiser some time ago is a manufacturer
| of hearing aids. (No hearing aid features have manifested in
| the Momentum True Wireless series thus far.)
| grahamj wrote:
| > every other TWS with parametric EQ and transparency mode can
| do the same thing,
|
| AirPods too! I'm am yet to be convinced that this is any
| different than using a different hearing test app like Mimi and
| applying the resulting audiogram, as has been possible for
| years.
| throawayonthe wrote:
| the point is that they can do, in an FDA-approved manner a
| hearing test + tuning the hearing aid + hearing protection all
| in one device
|
| and this means both that they don't have to use weasel legal
| language to avoid "the regulatory hawks" AND that they gain a
| huge air of legitimacy in their marketing as a medical device
| rustcleaner wrote:
| I own AAPL for that marketing edge! I bought more AAPL after
| they announced locking down macOS to prevent third party
| sourced applications from running, because Apple customers are
| the kind who'll interpret such news as daddy protecting them
| and looking out for babies' best interests, which means more
| money going into the Apple tax to pay AAPL holders!
|
| Fwiw I refuse to own Apple, I only own AAPL.
| l33t7332273 wrote:
| You do know you can still use macOS to run third party closed
| source applications, right?
| galad87 wrote:
| An even unsigned x86_64 apps and ad-hoc signed arm64 apps.
| myself248 wrote:
| This is fantastic! We're building a walk-in-closet-sized Faraday
| cage at i3Detroit, though of course we're in the US so we won't
| need it for this specific hack, there's a zillion reasons it's
| fun to have one!
|
| Off the top of my head:
|
| The biggie is that we're right down the street from WOMC's
| transmitter, which is 135,000 watts EIRP. It gets into EVERYTHING
| and makes other RF measurements more difficult, so if you're
| trying to align an amplifier or something, it's nice to start
| from a quiet place and get the basics solid, and only THEN add
| sources of potential intermod and stuff.
|
| Debugging wifi, bluetooth, and other wireless stuff without a
| zillion other nodes in view. Yes you can filter the output of a
| sniffer, but it's more fun to filter the input. ;)
|
| Lighting up a 1G or 2G cellular network without worrying about
| spectrum licensing.
|
| Practicing offensive wifi techniques or other stuff that might
| interfere with the hackerspace's existing network.
|
| Playing with GPS spoofers in an FCC-free zone. Or anything else
| you might find amusing but want to do responsibly.
|
| Locking an iPhone in there to see if it reboots itself... (rofl)
| thel3l wrote:
| Yes!!
|
| Shocked we made it this far in life without one! Itching to put
| devices inside and light the air inside up without worrying
| about licensing!
|
| We actually ended up seeing a life size Faraday cage at Indian
| Institute of Science--felt good to see that the construction
| was similar to our approach
| rkagerer wrote:
| Is the hearing aid feature unavailable if you use the AirPods
| with an Android?
| jijji wrote:
| I'm not a genius but it seems pretty trivial to take the input
| from a microphone and pipe it to the output of a speaker, the
| hardest part probably is the device drivers for the airpods (or
| any bluetooth ear buds for that matter). It looks like others
| have already done this in hardware [0] for $84.99 on
| amazon.com. There is also "Sound Amplifier" app for Apple
| iPhone [1] that amplifies the surrounding voice near the phone.
|
| [0] https://www.amazon.com/Hearing-Seniors-Rechargeable-
| Bluetoot...
|
| [1] https://apps.apple.com/us/app/sound-amplifier/id1615079093
| ilt wrote:
| It's really not that simple. AirPods settings where you can
| tune audio for vocal range, balanced tone, brightness or your
| audiogram - which does much more fine tuning to the sounds
| you hear than just amplification.
| grahamj wrote:
| It sounds like they also do multiband compression (hearing
| protection) and multiband transparency/cancelling mixing
| (adaptive mode) on top of applying EQ (audiogram support) and
| things like accelerometer and wideband tracking for spatial
| audio.
|
| There's quite a bit of processing going on on-device.
| geku3 wrote:
| You need to set it up using Apple device, then it works with
| Android.
| RobMurray wrote:
| Is this actually different from the custom transparency mode in
| accessibility / headphone accommodations that existed before they
| even announced the hearing aid feature? It can use an audiogram
| stored in the health app. sounds pretty terrible with custom
| transparency mode though, a bit like a comb filter.
| ilt wrote:
| Exactly. I don't think it's different. I have been its user
| since March.
| sagz wrote:
| Can this be used to get EU specific features too? (AltStore and
| such)
| nsokolsky wrote:
| Don't see any reason why it wouldn't work. I suspect you don't
| even need a microwave in most places.
| thel3l wrote:
| Probably would work, however I suspect the changes would not be
| as sticky.
|
| Apple has some slightly more complex checks that they have used
| in the past to georestrict stuff like ECG, by using MCC/MNC
| codes from your mobile network. I suspect that the alt stores
| would be region locked and stop working outside the EU--but
| that remains to be tested, and seems like a fun thing to
| experiment with.
| notpushkin wrote:
| Certificate pinning should be pretty easy to solve in this
| particular case: just get a proxy/VPN! The Faraday cage
| shenanigans are pretty cool though.
| nimih wrote:
| You might need to explain how a VPN solves the certificate
| pinning issue; the author is already modifying the phone's
| HTTP/S traffic via a proxied network connection, and a VPN
| doesn't (to my knowledge) allow you to forge valid HTTPS
| responses using the pinned server certificate.
| notpushkin wrote:
| Sorry, should have clarified: _instead_ of faking the
| response, you can connect to Apple's servers through a US
| proxy. They will see you have a US IP address and return the
| corresponding location code, all over properly signed HTTPS.
|
| There are a few caveats (e.g. using a residential or mobile
| proxy would look less suspicious, in case Apple looks out for
| datacenter IP ranges), but I think it should work.
| NavinF wrote:
| He tried that. The phone knows its location using GPS and
| wifi. Apple doesn't care about your IP
| tim-- wrote:
| You don't need to modify the HTTPS traffic. You get a VPS
| that is in the US, and set the device up so that when it
| requests the domain (gspe1-ssl.ls.apple.com) that the IP
| address returned is not an Apple IP address, but the VPS IP.
|
| The VPS simply forwards traffic on port 443 to
| gspe1-ssl.ls.apple.com.
| dmcc365 wrote:
| Have you seen success with this method?
| rty32 wrote:
| Eh, how does using a VPN make it easier to MITM attack yourself
| and modify the response of that GET request?
| notpushkin wrote:
| Sorry, should have made it more clear! Basically there's no
| need to MITM at all here:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42122270
| thel3l wrote:
| That's exactly what we did in the end--used a commercial VPN
| and provided internet to the device over the USB cable. Could
| have probably used a Tailscale on a VPS somewhere too.
| mkagenius wrote:
| What he meant to say is, all your efforts were of no use,
| just use VPN in the ipad and the location will change.
|
| But I suppose, in this case Apple is deliberately using the
| wifi signals, not relying on IP so "just use VPN" doesn't
| work.
| auspbro wrote:
| awesome hacking...
| jrockway wrote:
| > Since WiFi and a microwave operate at the same frequency
| (2.4GHz), we ran our leaky microwave at full power to block out
| any persistent network signals in the air.
|
| Incidentally, WiFi tries to intentionally avoid this
| interference. Microwaves output no power during the zero crossing
| of the AC line that's driving it, and in this interval, there is
| no signal in the air to jam things. WiFi listens before sending
| (so as to avoid stepping on other stations), and the microwave's
| signal is enough to trigger this. (I forget if microwave ovens
| are "half wave" and you get 1/120th of a second 60 times a
| second, or if there is just a threshold near the zero crossing
| where there isn't enough power to interfere.)
|
| I would say it's likely that the microwave oven didn't really do
| much here.
| subarctic wrote:
| Whatever the theoretical analysis tells you, I've been able to
| reproduce a microwave interfering with a wifi signal with at
| least one microwave and router. I've had other times where it
| didn't have a noticeable effect though.
| jrockway wrote:
| The key to happiness in WiFi is that all the stations have to
| "hear" each other, or the listen-before-talk algorithm can't
| work and you end up stepping on valid transmissions that you
| can't hear. This ruins it for the stations that are the
| targets of that transmission but can also hear the first
| station. This is why WiFi tends to degrade at longer ranges;
| with a topology like <computer A> <---> <access point> <---->
| <computer B>, both computers can hear the access point, but
| can't hear each other. This means that they step on each
| other when talking to the access point; when this happens,
| the access point sees the sum of the two signals which is has
| to discard as garbage. As a result, whenever you see
| enterprise WiFi that actually works, you'll probably be able
| to see a ton of access points covering a large room. This is
| so that they can transmit at low power, causing devices in
| the above topology to roam to a different access point before
| they enter the failure mode of not hearing other stations
| connected to that access point.
|
| Now that I think about it, in OP's case, it's quite possible
| that the iPad can "hear" the microwave, but the access point
| can't, so the access point will send out its SSID broadcast
| while the microwave is interfering. This is great because you
| WANT that packet to get corrupted. So maybe the microwave
| does help!
| withinboredom wrote:
| You'll also see this in wireshark as retransmissions of
| packets. It's really great for discovering that a service
| you've written isn't filling packets and can only get
| 50-ish bps throughput due to head-of-line blocking and
| sending lots of tiny packets.
| shagie wrote:
| > As a result, whenever you see enterprise WiFi that
| actually works, you'll probably be able to see a ton of
| access points covering a large room.
|
| IETF attendees reengineer their hotel's Wi-Fi network -
| https://www.computerworld.com/article/1448494/ietf-
| attendees... ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3771876
| 31 comments)
|
| > "There was no WiFi signal when on the desk in front of
| the window in my room, but after some experiments, I
| discovered that the signal was quite good... on the ceiling
| of the bathroom," emailed Marc Petit-Huguenin.
|
| > "I have a Nexus S phone, so I taped it on the ceiling of
| the bathroom, and used tethering over Bluetooth to bridge
| the gap to the desk," he explained. This is a slow
| connection, but good enough to send emails over SMTP or use
| vi [the popular Unix text editor] over SSH."
|
| > ... Working behind the scenes, a team of IETF attendees
| negotiated with the hotel and were granted access to the
| wireless network by Sunday night. ...
|
| > The changes made by the IETF makeover team included:
|
| > - Decreasing the AP receiver sensitivity ([changing]
| HP/Colubris configuration "distance" from "large" to
| "small");
|
| > - Increasing the minimum data and multicast rate from
| 1Mbps to 2Mbps;
|
| > - Decreasing the transmit power from 20dBm to 10dBm;
|
| > - And, turning off the radios on numerous APs to reduce
| the [RF] noise.
|
| > ...
|
| > Each floor now has approximately two access points on
| each of these four channels, with the channels staggered on
| adjacent floor. That design maximizes the distance between
| access points on the same channel. "I hope this will
| significantly improve the coverage in some rooms that had
| marginal or no signal while also improving the signal to
| noise ratio for all," he said
|
| ----
|
| Note that the changes were being made to _decrease_ the
| power being used.
| xanderlewis wrote:
| I've had a microwave oven interfere quite clearly (correlated
| with turning it on and off) with my AirPods before.
| rollulus wrote:
| > Microwaves output no power during the zero crossing of the AC
| line Why is this? Do microwaves by design modulate their 2.4gHz
| on top of 50/60Hz?
| RF_Savage wrote:
| The magnetron needs about -4.4kV to work and food does not
| care about the purity of the signal, only net energy
| delivered.
|
| So the transformer based microwave oven power supplies have a
| 2.2kV transformer and then double that to 4.4kV for the
| magnetron.
|
| There is no filtering or smoothing, as those parts would cost
| money and present a danger to the service technician.
|
| So the voltage feeding the magnetron is not even sinusoidal.
| jrockway wrote:
| Yup, exactly. Compare the price of a PC power supply, which
| outputs a very smooth constant voltage, to a microwave
| oven. The microwave oven is cheaper, and uses all 1800W of
| your circuit. A DC power supply that does that is much more
| expensive.
|
| It is truly amazing how cost-optimized microwave ovens are.
| RobotToaster wrote:
| So two leaky microwaves on different mains phases would block
| (2.4ghz) wifi?
| Etheryte wrote:
| In theory, yes, but in practice microwaves messing with wifi is
| such a well known phenomenon that there's an XKCD about this.
| tanvach wrote:
| Don't know if running the microwave does much, since there are
| plenty of 5Ghz access points around too.
| thel3l wrote:
| 5GHz has quite low penetrating power, so for the most part our
| issue was 2.4GHz.
| eliasdaler wrote:
| This showcases why free software is important. Geo-locking is a
| such hostile practice which makes zero sense here.
|
| If the software/firmware was free and open, you'd be able to
| patch out/disable the geo-lock. But it probably wouldn't be there
| in the first place...
| pasc1878 wrote:
| Yes it does make sense in the general case.
|
| In the approved countries a regulatory body has had to approve
| this as a medical aid. If medical aids etc did not have to be
| approved then things that actually hurt and kill people could
| be sold as medical aids.
|
| The issue here is that this case appears to be a non damaging
| aid and so it looks silly to ban it. But regulations have to
| work otherwise they are of no use.
|
| The issue here is either regulators in other countries are slow
| or in the worst case Apple has not applied for approval.
| afh1 wrote:
| Thank God for regulators! How dangerous would life be
| otherwise. How could we live without them?
| immibis wrote:
| Then you still have the issue of whole-system incentives.
| With free software, there is no incentive to prevent
| OpenHearingAids from working in France, since it's provided
| at the user's own risk, and installed by the user themselves,
| who don't have to ask permission to do so. But when a company
| controls the process, that company is responsible for
| everything.
|
| It's somewhat similar in spirit to the end-to-end encryption
| issue: government agencies can demand platforms hand over
| copies of users' messages if they have them, but they can't
| force platforms to have them, resulting in platforms going
| out of their way to not have copies of users' messages. If a
| platform went out of its way to not have control over the
| software its users run (this describes most non-Apple general
| computing platforms) then it can't be forced to regulate that
| software. If it does, it can.
| PeterStuer wrote:
| Reminds me on how I setup laptops these days for geodisplaced vpn
| enjoyment.
|
| Have the laptop on the vpn even during OS install. Never run the
| vpn client on the laptop. Never connect to any other network. Use
| the target's localisation (language, kb, timezone) during
| install. Have a dedicated browser with detailed location features
| turned off for your target sites.
| biosboiii wrote:
| Does anyone know which decompilation tool produces these graphs,
| as shown in the blog post?
| biosboiii wrote:
| Found it out myself, https://binary.ninja/
| thel3l wrote:
| Yep, sorry!
|
| It is Binary Ninja
| ryanmccullagh wrote:
| I bought AirPods Pro this year and it has been disappointing
| compared to the first gen non pro I had previously.
|
| Somehow they fall out of my if i adjust my head down.
|
| Battery life is good though
| udp wrote:
| I've found that aftermarket memory foam eartips work much
| better than the stock ones for keeping them in my ears.
| grahamj wrote:
| Yep. I'm kind of shocked Apple doesn't offer these as they
| must be a huge moneymaker.
| astrange wrote:
| SednaEarFit Crystal work best for me - they're sticky and
| sound better than the foam ones.
| trhway wrote:
| >modern devices position you within cities by using a combination
| of WiFi SSIDs + MAC addresses of routers and devices around you
| as well as GPS to triangulate your location. This was also the
| reason that our WiFi only iPad was able to display an accurate
| location in apps even though it had neither GPS nor cellular.
|
| can't wait for this to find its way into Tomahawk missiles as a
| fallback for the jammed GPS environment
| rtkwe wrote:
| They can already perform accurate strikes without GPS with
| terrain following and INS so not sure this would actually help
| it that much.
| shawa_a_a wrote:
| A commenter on Reddit [1] pointed out that you can access the
| hearing test feature directly by using a special URL:
| x-apple-health://HearingAppPlugin.healthplugin/HearingTest
|
| I wonder if there's a similar deep link to be found to enable
| Hearing Aid mode?
|
| 1:
| https://www.reddit.com/r/AirpodsPro/comments/1gftyqo/is_the_...
| thel3l wrote:
| This was one of the rabbitholes I chased down, but didn't find
| anything.
|
| At some level, this was just the easier approach :)
|
| I'm sure there's something though. Apple changed the URL
| handler schemes for iOS 18, so a lot of old repos that
| reference that don't work anymore.
| supersing wrote:
| Some Chinese users have discovered a more effective way to bypass
| geo-locking, even on iPhones (some Apple Health features require
| approval and can only be enabled on iPhone, not iPad).
|
| TLDR, iPhones prioritize external GPS devices over internal ones.
| All you need is a "fake" lightning or USB-C external GPS device
| that tells your device where you want it to think it is.
|
| Source: https://www.v2ex.com/t/1075937
| thel3l wrote:
| Yeah, Apple sometimes checks MCC/MNC on the cellular network as
| well, for some reason they chose not to lock it down that way
| here.
|
| However, if they did lock it to require an iPhone, the way we
| would activate would be by using our Faraday cage to spoof GPS
| inside it, and maybe a spoofed base station.
| kuon wrote:
| How can the GET request be modified if it uses HTTPS? You can
| spoof certificates on iOS devices with dev tools?
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