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Posts Tagged ‘GSM’

Txtr : Open digital reading platform

March 16th, 2010

txtr reader is product of Txtr, Berlin based company engaged in building tools & services for digital reader.
Interesting part is, txtr provides hardware details of txtr reader device. It is based on Freescale i.Mx31 SoC which contains ARM11 processor core.

Txtr aims to integrate digital reading tools & services, while service can be used on various platform, having own open platform attracts community to also launch services on txtr platform. It can also encorages existing device vendor to integrate txtr service on there platform.

Reader hardware consist of Bluetooth, Wifi, Near field communication & EDGE modem to communicate with device. Interface such as, 3D Acceleratormeter, Touch screen based Eleectronic ink display, vibrator motor makes it more attractive platform for developing entertainment applications.

Note: Device is not available as of date.

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Posted in ARM 11, Freescale, Product

Tags: ARM ARM 11 Freescale GSM mobile

Neo FreeRunner from Openmoko

January 20th, 2010

Neo 1973 was first first major open hardware platform by Openmoko. Neo Freerunner was follow up of Neo 1973. Building open hardware mobile is challenge in itself. Primary because GSM chipset vendor do not provide small quantity of baseband chipset & would also not like to provide support for same.

Neo FreeRunner uses ARM9 processor based SC32442 from Samsung. FreeRunner is complete smartphone with LCD, Bluetooth, WiFi, GPS, Accelerometer besides GSM Baseband support for call & GPRS.

Neo FreeRunner is support by multiple Linux distribution & holds capabilities to support multi boot, This is clearly big feature on smartphone. Neo FreeRunner provides good platform for developing any hardware or software for Smartphone. Schematics, hardware reference manual etc are available to community for use.

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Posted in ARM 9, Product, Samsung

Tags: ARM 9 GSM mobile Samsung smartphone

GSM (in)security remains open question , But What’s next ?

January 3rd, 2010

As appeared recently in world wide media & as demonstrated during 26c3,

GSM handset contains insecure firmware.

Original GSM specifications were published around 20 years before. Interestingly, GSM specifications are open, but has only few open source implementation. GSM uses A5/1 encryption algorithm which has became open over a period of time.

Now, Project such as OpenBTS provides open source implementation of Base Transceiver Stations ś software, while OpenBSC provide open source implementation Base Station Controller.

Issue at hand : Around 4 Billion GSM handsets are already deployed & containing insecure firmware. Now what ? Any Fix is available ? What is way-out of this problem ?

Above are still open questions.

But lets understand root cause of this problem,

- All the implementation of GSM stack where closed source.

- Access to firmware (source code as well as binary) were not available to general hacker, making it nearly impossible to understand it.

- GSM stack remained in hands of (very few) close source commercial developer for years.

- If a open implementation of GSM stack was available (at-least for scientific study), it could have reviewed by world-wide hackers.

- Similar to TCP/IP protocol, over a period of time, it could have become more secure.

Lesson to learn: We should learn from this mistake & should not repeat same for upcoming 3G, LTE, 4G & related standards. These standard should have open source implementation (including hardware as well as software).