Re: First small steps toward free GSM firmware

[Sebastian Krzyszkowiak]

On Sat, Nov 16, 2013 at 12:33 AM, Neal H. Walfield  wrote:
> As long as the modem and CPU only communicate via the serial port,
> i.e., there is no shared memory, then the application CPU is
> (relatively) safe from attacks started from the baseband CPU.  As I
> understand it, this is the case for the GTA0*, but it would be good to
> have confirmation of this from someone better in the know.
>
> Neal

Yes. GTA01 and GTA02 communicate with modem (TI Calypso) via serial
port, and GTA04 (with Option GTM601W) via USB.

While so called "dumbphones" and some older "smartphones" like Symbian
devices often didn't have dedicated APU, so complete OS was
technically running on modem, newer devices have rather good
separation of those two processors. However, it's not always the case
- there are some devices that communicate with modem via shared RAM.
It starts to be pretty common on Android devices. It's still hardly
any news, it's perfectly known for few years, and projects like
Replicant were actively discouraging usage of such phones ever since.

Anyway, it's not a secret, one can easily check by some quick googling
if the device he/she's interested in follows this design.

It's good to raise awareness about problems with such design. It's bad
to make it sound like some secret conspiracy. Like we haven't got
enough of true secret conspiracies to worry about ;)

-- 
Sebastian Krzyszkowiak, dos
http://dosowisko.net/

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Re: First small steps toward free GSM firmware

[Neal H. Walfield]

At Sat, 16 Nov 2013 00:03:33 +0100,
kardan wrote:
> 
> [1  ]
> [1.1  ]
> Am Fri, 15 Nov 2013 02:17:48 +0100
> schrieb joerg Reisenweber :
> 
> > [quote]
> > Lastly, the baseband processor is usually the master processor,
> > whereas the application processor (which runs the mobile operating
> > system) is the slave. [/quote]
> > 
> > Nothing more to say. This article isn't worth the CPU time to render
> > it on my screen.
> > 
> > You can hack and exploit the baseband as much as you like, it stays
> > baseband can can do nothing it couldn't do anytime on any location in
> > the network. IOW, don't worry about what's going on in your modem.
> > It's even less interesting than what's going on in your harddisk of
> > your PC. Since the harddisk could actually introduce a infected
> > bootloader or kernel to your system, the modem is sth you rarely ever
> > boot from. ;-P
> 
> I don't get you (or got you wrong). The article says (which indeed is
> no news), that the baseband can be easily exploited which affects
> the applications you are running (or are started / installed remotely).
> 
> http://lists.mayfirst.org/pipermail/guardian-dev/2012-October/001012.html
> http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/03/07/baseband_processor_mobile_hack_threat/?page=1

This is the key bit from the Register's article:

  "Just like on PCs, modern (smart)phone designs are based on a shared
  memory architecture," Rupp told El Reg. "In other words, the baseband
  processor and the application processor share the same physical memory
  to communicate with each other. Even though there are various
  protection techniques like DEP (Data Execution Prevention) in place
  that should in principle prevent that, memory pages which contain
  executable code can be written to.

As long as the modem and CPU only communicate via the serial port,
i.e., there is no shared memory, then the application CPU is
(relatively) safe from attacks started from the baseband CPU.  As I
understand it, this is the case for the GTA0*, but it would be good to
have confirmation of this from someone better in the know.

Neal

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Re: First small steps toward free GSM firmware

[kardan]

Am Fri, 15 Nov 2013 02:17:48 +0100
schrieb joerg Reisenweber :

> [quote]
> Lastly, the baseband processor is usually the master processor,
> whereas the application processor (which runs the mobile operating
> system) is the slave. [/quote]
> 
> Nothing more to say. This article isn't worth the CPU time to render
> it on my screen.
> 
> You can hack and exploit the baseband as much as you like, it stays
> baseband can can do nothing it couldn't do anytime on any location in
> the network. IOW, don't worry about what's going on in your modem.
> It's even less interesting than what's going on in your harddisk of
> your PC. Since the harddisk could actually introduce a infected
> bootloader or kernel to your system, the modem is sth you rarely ever
> boot from. ;-P

I don't get you (or got you wrong). The article says (which indeed is
no news), that the baseband can be easily exploited which affects
the applications you are running (or are started / installed remotely).

http://lists.mayfirst.org/pipermail/guardian-dev/2012-October/001012.html
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/03/07/baseband_processor_mobile_hack_threat/?page=1

Please tell me, I am wrong.

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Re: First small steps toward free GSM firmware

[joerg Reisenweber]

On Fri 15 November 2013 01:59:10 Sebastian Krzyszkowiak wrote:
> On Fri, Nov 15, 2013 at 1:50 AM, kardan  wrote:
> > The following is more generally related to the GSM subject:
> > http://www.osnews.com/story/27416/The_second_operating_system_hiding_in_e
> > very_mobile_phone
> 
> I really don't understand this article. It's like it's some kind of
> surprise that GSM modems run firmware on their processors. It's so
> obvious, yet everyone seems surprised and shares this article like it
> was something insightful.
> 
> Probably you know this, but I feel like clearing it up to some other
> readers that may be confused: This whole topic is exactly about such
> "OS hiding in the modem" and I guess everyone who was following
> Openmoko struggling with firmware bugs already know that it's buggy
> and probably not very hard to exploit (AFAIR even some pretty standard
> GPRS usage may cause buffer overflows).

[quote]
Lastly, the baseband processor is usually the master processor, whereas the 
application processor (which runs the mobile operating system) is the slave.
[/quote]

Nothing more to say. This article isn't worth the CPU time to render it on my 
screen.

You can hack and exploit the baseband as much as you like, it stays baseband 
can can do nothing it couldn't do anytime on any location in the network.
IOW, don't worry about what's going on in your modem. It's even less 
interesting than what's going on in your harddisk of your PC. Since the 
harddisk could actually introduce a infected bootloader or kernel to your 
system, the modem is sth you rarely ever boot from. ;-P

incredible

Thanks Dos1! :-)
/j
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Re: First small steps toward free GSM firmware

[Sebastian Krzyszkowiak]

On Fri, Nov 15, 2013 at 1:50 AM, kardan  wrote:
> The following is more generally related to the GSM subject:
> http://www.osnews.com/story/27416/The_second_operating_system_hiding_in_every_mobile_phone

I really don't understand this article. It's like it's some kind of
surprise that GSM modems run firmware on their processors. It's so
obvious, yet everyone seems surprised and shares this article like it
was something insightful.

Probably you know this, but I feel like clearing it up to some other
readers that may be confused: This whole topic is exactly about such
"OS hiding in the modem" and I guess everyone who was following
Openmoko struggling with firmware bugs already know that it's buggy
and probably not very hard to exploit (AFAIR even some pretty standard
GPRS usage may cause buffer overflows).

-- 
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http://dosowisko.net/

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Re: First small steps toward free GSM firmware

[kardan]

Hey,

Excuse me for reading the thread only cursory,

On Mon, 11 Nov 2013 01:39:22 +0400 Norayr Chilingarian
 wrote:

> I would write instructions in wiki.

So far I did not understand your setup from the links you gave.
Your findings seem to be quite fresh. It is probably great work you are
doing. Maybe some sorted testing should be done before publishing
"facts". Please continue documenting your experiments to the list for
direct feedback as it is probably best to share with fellow developers
first.

The following is more generally related to the GSM subject:
http://www.osnews.com/story/27416/The_second_operating_system_hiding_in_every_mobile_phone
http://events.ccc.de/congress/2011/Fahrplan/attachments/2022_11-ccc-qcombbdbg.pdf
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fQqv0v14KKY

All the best,
kardan

-- 
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* NSA/GHCQ soak up all they can into their data centers
* orwell 2.0: http://knopfdoubleday.com/book/232010/the-circle/

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Re: First small steps toward free GSM firmware

[joerg Reisenweber]

On Sun 10 November 2013 22:53:55 Norayr Chilingarian wrote:
> About wiki, first of all, we have new, legally free (in those repressive
> countries (: ) tool - the flasher. Secondly we have the alternative
> firmware _with_source code.
> I belive it worth to write there about free flasher, how to build it,
> and how to use it, not only with leo2moko port. The flasher can be used
> to flash moko11 too. Also, it worth to write there how to build the
> leo2moko firmware. Anyone may add whatever political concern she has to
> the same wiki page.

Absolutely. nothing wrong in instructions how to build and flash new calypso 
firmware. Just please don't sugest it might fix issues that users may conceive 
they have. Placebo effect is all powerful. And more users flashing new firmware 
and then looking for any improvements they might want to spot will result in 
more such reports about "new firmware improves XYZ" which agian pulls in new 
users tempted to try and believe.

By all means write instructions based on clear facts! We need those.
Sorry if I sounded rude.

cheers
jOERG
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Re: First small steps toward free GSM firmware

[Norayr Chilingarian]

Also, I never did write anything about moko11 bugs.
I don't know about them.
I did write that my perception is, this firmware seem to have better
power management.

I believe in medicine, and I don't believe in ghosts.
If you say, it's unrelated, I don't argue.
What can I say now, it worked ~10 hours with GSM turned on, had two
reboots, and still has 63% of battery power.
May be that's connected to heating or something else. But my device
became usable, I was writing that it had problems in this mailing list a
couple of weeks ago.

About wiki, first of all, we have new, legally free (in those repressive
countries (: ) tool - the flasher. Secondly we have the alternative
firmware _with_source code.
I belive it worth to write there about free flasher, how to build it,
and how to use it, not only with leo2moko port. The flasher can be used
to flash moko11 too. Also, it worth to write there how to build the
leo2moko firmware. Anyone may add whatever political concern she has to
the same wiki page.

11/10/13 09:32 -???, joerg Reisenweber-?  ?:
> On Sun 10 November 2013 18:27:45 Nick wrote:
>> Quoth Norayr Chilingarian:
>>> What I would write in wiki is step by step instructions how to build the
>>> firmware, free loader, and flash it.
>>> I don't think it can confuse someone in some way.
>>>
>>> What about moderation, then, well, what you are saying is against
>>> collaborative work, like it is in Wikipedia.
>>> Everyone, by even not having Wikipedia account could go and write
>>> everything he wants. However, as we see, there are more sane people
>>> rather than idiots, and Wikipedia is mostly correct.
>> I think Joerg was worried about you writing a page saying "this
>> firmware improves power consumption" before more testing and
>> consulting with more knowledgeable people. I'm sure we all agree
>> that a place to discuss ideas and possibilities (as wrong as they
>> may turn out to be) is valuable, but Joerg has no doubt been around
>> long enough to have to deal with the fallout of those discussions /
>> conjectures being left in places where people take theories that had
>> been disproved elsewhere as fact, and shared the disinformation
>> wider. Which ultimately can give a bad impression to a project, as
>> well as bad experience to others.
>>
>> Which is a long way of saying: the mailing list is the best place
>> for discussion, and the wiki should be reserved for things which we
>> are more sure about. So instructions on building and loading the
>> firmware would be fine for the wiki, but speculations about its
>> power saving (or sms receiving) improvements are best for the
>> mailing list. Which I know is what you suggested, but that wasn't
>> clear initially.
> !00% ACK, sorry if that wasn't clear enough from what I wrote. Thanks for 
> helping me out :-)
> /j
>
>
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Re: First small steps toward free GSM firmware

[Norayr Chilingarian]

Okay, I see what you say.
As Nick mentioned I would write instructions in wiki. As I have written
previously in this mailing list, it would be good if someone could
document how to build and flash it step by step.
Wiki is good for collaborative editing, and if I have made unnecessary
steps, someone may fix my howto. It's editable. On the other side nobody
can prevent me from writing any bullishit at my own site or wiki, where
only I have access to. Thus collaborative wiki is always more trustable
than separate one with controlled access.
Even if I were writing there nonsense, the text is digital and editable,
unlike cuneiform it's cut in stone.

11/10/13 09:19 -ում, joerg Reisenweber-ը գրել է:
> On Sun 10 November 2013 18:03:36 Norayr Chilingarian wrote:
>> I know, that people tend to make connection between events.
>> I know, that often it is useful, and often it is wrong to make those
>> connections.
>> I don't know why do I see an improvement, and I accept the possibility,
>> that it's because of other firmware.
>> How can we know if it is? More testing, more users trying it.
>> Try the firmware and write there your observations. Measure something if
>> you can.
> Pretty evil and rogue approach to suggest coming up with some nonsense that 
> other more competent people tell you is definitely unrelated, and suggest 
> other 
> people should waste their time on trying to reproduce your findings, while 
> you 
> can't come up with any sane story why those "patches" or "fixes" you claim to 
> see are real.
>
> How about this: my last 3 firmware flashes were in the night between 3:00 and 
> 3:30, I claim this could mean something worth investigating and now I ask 
> other users to get up in the night and reflash their modem firmware to verify 
> they see more responsiveness in scrolling screens after that.
>
> *maybe* you're able to get my point. And no, this is NOT about censorship, 
> this is about taking care of OM's customer base, protecting them from 
> suggestions to clean their device in dishwasher engine and the like.
>
> BR
> jOERG


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Re: First small steps toward free GSM firmware

[Michael Spacefalcon]

Wow, I went to bed after my last post, and when I got up this morning,
there had been a lively discussion between Norayr, Joerg and Nick!

As much as I would love to be proven wrong on this, I consider it
*very* unlikely that there is any functional defect in moko11 which
somehow gets magically fixed with my current leo2moko transitional
step.  There probably *are* bugs galore in TI's binary object libs
which contain the bulk of the GSM protocol stack, likely even buffer
overflow etc bugs which could be exploited by someone setting up a
rogue BTS and feeding control packets over the air containing things
which "shouldn't happen" - but if such bugs are present in moko11,
they are probably present in all versions of TI's TCS211 binary libs,
including the versions used in my current leo2moko port, hence we
don't have a fix for that malady yet.

The LoCosto source at http://scottn.us/downloads/peek/ does have the
GSM/GPRS protocol stack in full source form (aside from GPF, which
appears to have been distributed as binary libs even inside TI!), and
I do seek to replace our current blobs with this LoCosto version, but
before we can do that, I first need to go through the hellish process
of reintegrating all of the lower-level pieces (basically everything
under chipsetsw in the leo2moko source tree) into my Unix/gcc build
environment - and I'm just starting on that one, currently trying to
figure out why the RVT task is not emitting "system time" trace
messages every 20 s like it should...

In the meantime, the only gain which the community can get from my
leo2moko transitional step is the change from a black box to a glass
box: you can see all of the sources and binary objects from which I
have built my fw, the binary objects contain a good amount of symbolic
information making disassembly quite practical, and there is a map
file from the linker which shows what every byte in the final
flashable binary is for and what it corresponds to in the source.

VLR,
SF

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Re: First small steps toward free GSM firmware

[joerg Reisenweber]

On Sun 10 November 2013 18:27:45 Nick wrote:
> Quoth Norayr Chilingarian:
> > What I would write in wiki is step by step instructions how to build the
> > firmware, free loader, and flash it.
> > I don't think it can confuse someone in some way.
> > 
> > What about moderation, then, well, what you are saying is against
> > collaborative work, like it is in Wikipedia.
> > Everyone, by even not having Wikipedia account could go and write
> > everything he wants. However, as we see, there are more sane people
> > rather than idiots, and Wikipedia is mostly correct.
> 
> I think Joerg was worried about you writing a page saying "this
> firmware improves power consumption" before more testing and
> consulting with more knowledgeable people. I'm sure we all agree
> that a place to discuss ideas and possibilities (as wrong as they
> may turn out to be) is valuable, but Joerg has no doubt been around
> long enough to have to deal with the fallout of those discussions /
> conjectures being left in places where people take theories that had
> been disproved elsewhere as fact, and shared the disinformation
> wider. Which ultimately can give a bad impression to a project, as
> well as bad experience to others.
> 
> Which is a long way of saying: the mailing list is the best place
> for discussion, and the wiki should be reserved for things which we
> are more sure about. So instructions on building and loading the
> firmware would be fine for the wiki, but speculations about its
> power saving (or sms receiving) improvements are best for the
> mailing list. Which I know is what you suggested, but that wasn't
> clear initially.

!00% ACK, sorry if that wasn't clear enough from what I wrote. Thanks for 
helping me out :-)
/j
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Re: First small steps toward free GSM firmware

[Nick]

Quoth Norayr Chilingarian:
> What I would write in wiki is step by step instructions how to build the
> firmware, free loader, and flash it.
> I don't think it can confuse someone in some way.
> 
> What about moderation, then, well, what you are saying is against
> collaborative work, like it is in Wikipedia.
> Everyone, by even not having Wikipedia account could go and write
> everything he wants. However, as we see, there are more sane people
> rather than idiots, and Wikipedia is mostly correct.

I think Joerg was worried about you writing a page saying "this 
firmware improves power consumption" before more testing and 
consulting with more knowledgeable people. I'm sure we all agree 
that a place to discuss ideas and possibilities (as wrong as they 
may turn out to be) is valuable, but Joerg has no doubt been around 
long enough to have to deal with the fallout of those discussions / 
conjectures being left in places where people take theories that had 
been disproved elsewhere as fact, and shared the disinformation 
wider. Which ultimately can give a bad impression to a project, as 
well as bad experience to others.

Which is a long way of saying: the mailing list is the best place 
for discussion, and the wiki should be reserved for things which we 
are more sure about. So instructions on building and loading the 
firmware would be fine for the wiki, but speculations about its 
power saving (or sms receiving) improvements are best for the 
mailing list. Which I know is what you suggested, but that wasn't 
clear initially.

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Re: First small steps toward free GSM firmware

[joerg Reisenweber]

On Sun 10 November 2013 18:03:36 Norayr Chilingarian wrote:
> I know, that people tend to make connection between events.
> I know, that often it is useful, and often it is wrong to make those
> connections.
> I don't know why do I see an improvement, and I accept the possibility,
> that it's because of other firmware.
> How can we know if it is? More testing, more users trying it.
> Try the firmware and write there your observations. Measure something if
> you can.

Pretty evil and rogue approach to suggest coming up with some nonsense that 
other more competent people tell you is definitely unrelated, and suggest other 
people should waste their time on trying to reproduce your findings, while you 
can't come up with any sane story why those "patches" or "fixes" you claim to 
see are real.

How about this: my last 3 firmware flashes were in the night between 3:00 and 
3:30, I claim this could mean something worth investigating and now I ask 
other users to get up in the night and reflash their modem firmware to verify 
they see more responsiveness in scrolling screens after that.

*maybe* you're able to get my point. And no, this is NOT about censorship, 
this is about taking care of OM's customer base, protecting them from 
suggestions to clean their device in dishwasher engine and the like.

BR
jOERG
-- 
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/\  www.asciiribbon.org   - against proprietary attachments
(alas the above page got scrapped due to resignation(!!), so here some 
supplementary links:)
http://www.georgedillon.com/web/html_email_is_evil.shtml  
http://www.nonhtmlmail.org/campaign.html
http://www.georgedillon.com/web/html_email_is_evil_still.shtml
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Re: First small steps toward free GSM firmware

[Norayr Chilingarian]

I know, that people tend to make connection between events.
I know, that often it is useful, and often it is wrong to make those
connections.
I don't know why do I see an improvement, and I accept the possibility,
that it's because of other firmware.
How can we know if it is? More testing, more users trying it.
Try the firmware and write there your observations. Measure something if
you can.

11/10/13 05:56 -ում, joerg Reisenweber-ը գրել է:
> On Sun 10 November 2013 10:33:47 Norayr Chilingarian wrote:
>> What's also interesting, I have an impression, that power managment
>> works much better. With turned on gsm, it lasts more than 3-4 hours, as
>> before. I'll measure how long will it stay today. But I already see it's
>> becoming usable. Yes, I did not fix hardware. No, I did not enable deep
>> sleep in /etc/frameworkd.conf. So I did not do anything to fix the
>> issue.
> Are you *sure* about that? Starting your room heating may already suffice - 
> no 
> kidding. Please don't try to outsmart the experts. #1024 been pretty complex 
> and I suggest you learn about it before claiming moko11 has a bug regarding 
> that. :-/
>
> cheers
> jOERG


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Re: First small steps toward free GSM firmware

[Norayr Chilingarian]

What I would write in wiki is step by step instructions how to build the
firmware, free loader, and flash it.
I don't think it can confuse someone in some way.

What about moderation, then, well, what you are saying is against
collaborative work, like it is in Wikipedia.
Everyone, by even not having Wikipedia account could go and write
everything he wants. However, as we see, there are more sane people
rather than idiots, and Wikipedia is mostly correct.

I believe no one should decide what I have a right to write before even
seeing the text.
And when that's done after, then it's often called "censorship" - when
someone does not want some information published. I believe in
discussions, in talks. When all the points of view are expressed, and
people may choose between them, or new idea is born.

Also, people choose themselves whether they want to be "misleaded". They
have a right to choose.

11/10/13 06:10 -ում, joerg Reisenweber-ը գրել է:
> On Sun 10 November 2013 11:15:22 Norayr Chilingarian wrote:
>> I have documented what I have done, and I have a manual draft on my
>> computer.
>> If I can get a wiki account, I will add the information there.
> A good example why we should keep wiki in moderated mode. All you could 
> contribute based on your reports so far is mere random noise confusing the 
> hell out of users.


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Re: First small steps toward free GSM firmware

[joerg Reisenweber]

On Sun 10 November 2013 11:15:22 Norayr Chilingarian wrote:
> I have documented what I have done, and I have a manual draft on my
> computer.
> If I can get a wiki account, I will add the information there.

A good example why we should keep wiki in moderated mode. All you could 
contribute based on your reports so far is mere random noise confusing the 
hell out of users. Neither #1024 nor SMS nor power management is *ANY* related 
to the modem firmware - you are *definitely* observing (and spreading as 
facts?) 
some random effects that have no correlation whatsoever. Now adding this to 
wiki would cause another few dozen (or hundreds) of users to eventually try to 
reproduce your "achievements" and add their own success stories to wiki, 
suggesting even more snakeoil and doing more havok to the system and the info 
available.
As a general rule don't spread any info when you can't *teach* people about 
tha basics of that info - here: as long as you don't have a story which code 
in calypso firmware needs to get changed in which way and why, to achieve a 
certain improvement, youplese don't even think about suggesting messing with 
this stuff in wiki or elsewhere.

/j
-- 
()  ascii ribbon campaign - against html e-mail 
/\  www.asciiribbon.org   - against proprietary attachments
(alas the above page got scrapped due to resignation(!!), so here some 
supplementary links:)
http://www.georgedillon.com/web/html_email_is_evil.shtml  
http://www.nonhtmlmail.org/campaign.html
http://www.georgedillon.com/web/html_email_is_evil_still.shtml
http://www.gerstbach.at/2004/ascii/ (German)


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Re: First small steps toward free GSM firmware

[joerg Reisenweber]

On Sun 10 November 2013 10:33:47 Norayr Chilingarian wrote:
> What's also interesting, I have an impression, that power managment
> works much better. With turned on gsm, it lasts more than 3-4 hours, as
> before. I'll measure how long will it stay today. But I already see it's
> becoming usable. Yes, I did not fix hardware. No, I did not enable deep
> sleep in /etc/frameworkd.conf. So I did not do anything to fix the
> issue.

Are you *sure* about that? Starting your room heating may already suffice - no 
kidding. Please don't try to outsmart the experts. #1024 been pretty complex 
and I suggest you learn about it before claiming moko11 has a bug regarding 
that. :-/

cheers
jOERG
-- 
()  ascii ribbon campaign - against html e-mail 
/\  www.asciiribbon.org   - against proprietary attachments
(alas the above page got scrapped due to resignation(!!), so here some 
supplementary links:)
http://www.georgedillon.com/web/html_email_is_evil.shtml  
http://www.nonhtmlmail.org/campaign.html
http://www.georgedillon.com/web/html_email_is_evil_still.shtml
http://www.gerstbach.at/2004/ascii/ (German)


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Re: First small steps toward free GSM firmware

[Norayr Chilingarian]

I have documented what I have done, and I have a manual draft on my
computer.
If I can get a wiki account, I will add the information there.

11/10/13 01:33 -ում, Norayr Chilingarian-ը գրել է:
> So, I were getting messages in SHR, that the SIM SMS card storage is
> full, and I need to remove some messages.
> However by running SMS program in SHR I could not get list of messages
> previously. Neither I can get this list now.
> What is interesting, is that after second reboot it had "received" a
> bunch of messages, each of them I could remove upon reading.
> Those messages were actually old. I had to see them and remove long time
> ago.
> May be that's SHR issue, because as far as I remember, SMS program in
> QtMoko could get list of messages.
>
> What's also interesting, I have an impression, that power managment
> works much better. With turned on gsm, it lasts more than 3-4 hours, as
> before. I'll measure how long will it stay today. But I already see it's
> becoming usable. Yes, I did not fix hardware. No, I did not enable deep
> sleep in /etc/frameworkd.conf. So I did not do anything to fix the
> issue. It seems that just with this firmware power management works
> better. That was also one of the reasons I wanted to try this firmware.
> Though I did not have great hopes it will make change, because I have
> read that hardware fix is necessary, but anyway, at least there is an
> improvement for sure.
> I had moko11 before.
>
> Another note.
> Previously, probably after sleep (SHR puts device to sleep by default)
> GSM did not want to return very often. Now, once it did not return, and
> simply turning off on on GSM from the Settings helped very fast. As far
> as I remember, with moko11 firmware, usually reboot was necessary to get
> the GSM back.
>
>> Now this is truly interesting - are you saying that you are seeing
> differences in SMS handling behaviour between moko11 and my leo2moko,
> and that leo2moko works better for you in this regard? Details, please!
>
>
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> http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community


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Re: First small steps toward free GSM firmware

[Norayr Chilingarian]

So, I were getting messages in SHR, that the SIM SMS card storage is
full, and I need to remove some messages.
However by running SMS program in SHR I could not get list of messages
previously. Neither I can get this list now.
What is interesting, is that after second reboot it had "received" a
bunch of messages, each of them I could remove upon reading.
Those messages were actually old. I had to see them and remove long time
ago.
May be that's SHR issue, because as far as I remember, SMS program in
QtMoko could get list of messages.

What's also interesting, I have an impression, that power managment
works much better. With turned on gsm, it lasts more than 3-4 hours, as
before. I'll measure how long will it stay today. But I already see it's
becoming usable. Yes, I did not fix hardware. No, I did not enable deep
sleep in /etc/frameworkd.conf. So I did not do anything to fix the
issue. It seems that just with this firmware power management works
better. That was also one of the reasons I wanted to try this firmware.
Though I did not have great hopes it will make change, because I have
read that hardware fix is necessary, but anyway, at least there is an
improvement for sure.
I had moko11 before.

Another note.
Previously, probably after sleep (SHR puts device to sleep by default)
GSM did not want to return very often. Now, once it did not return, and
simply turning off on on GSM from the Settings helped very fast. As far
as I remember, with moko11 firmware, usually reboot was necessary to get
the GSM back.

>Now this is truly interesting - are you saying that you are seeing
differences in SMS handling behaviour between moko11 and my leo2moko,
and that leo2moko works better for you in this regard? Details, please!


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Re: First small steps toward free GSM firmware

[Michael Spacefalcon]

Norayr Chilingarian  wrote:

> Hehe, flashed your image!
> http://norayr.arnet.am/tmp/2013-11-09/Screenshot-2_patched.png

Nice!

> Thanks a lot.

You're welcome. :)

> I don't use gsm usually, I'll check how gprs works over gsm.
> It did not work before, usually SHR did not want to connect.
> [...] But I would
> like to learn to establish gprs connection from console.

Right now all my knowledge of GPRS consists of just this one paragraph
from Harald Welte's paper:

http://laforge.gnumonks.org/papers/gsm_phone-anatomy-latest.pdf

(Paragraph 6.1 on page 8 in the PDF.)

Given this highly limited amount of GPRS knowledge on my part, I'm
afraid that I won't be of much help with GPRS until *much* later down
the road, when I'm ready to try integrating (and learning) GPRS, well
after I get all basic GSM functionality (voice, SMS and CSD) fully
working in the gcc-built FC GSM fw.

> P. S. one day I'll play with IMEI too.

Have fun!  Here are some tools to get you started:

ftp://ftp.ifctf.org/pub/GSM/FreeCalypso/mpffs-tools-r1.tar.bz2

In another msg:

> I can already tell that I could not use sms's previously, they did not
> work. I just received many sms's after reboot, and I was able to remove
> them.
> It did not work before.

Now this is truly interesting - are you saying that you are seeing
differences in SMS handling behaviour between moko11 and my leo2moko,
and that leo2moko works better for you in this regard?

Details, please!  I find it rather improbable that moko11 would have a
fatal defect in something as basic as handling incoming SMS, hence me
trying to understand exactly what it was that didn't work for you with
moko11 and got fixed with leo2moko.

Don't get me wrong, I would *love* to find out that my fw has some
actual functional improvement over moko11, beyond the "feel good" of
having a viewable source, but let's first confirm that it's real and
not imaginary...

VLR,
SF

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Re: First small steps toward free GSM firmware

[Norayr Chilingarian]

I can already tell that I could not use sms's previously, they did not
work. I just received many sms's after reboot, and I was able to remove
them.
It did not work before.

11/09/13 11:42 -ում, Norayr Chilingarian-ը գրել է:
> Hehe, flashed your image!
>
> http://norayr.arnet.am/tmp/2013-11-09/Screenshot-2_patched.png
>
> Thanks a lot.
> Let's see how it works. I don't use gsm usually, I'll check how gprs
> works over gsm.
> It did not work before, usually SHR did not want to connect.
> But I also had problems with iliwi, so I usually connect to wifi by
> hands, from terminal.
> That way it works. So may be I am doing something wrong. But I would
> like to learn to establish gprs connection from console.
>
> Anyway, this was off topic.
>
> The firmware flashed, will continue testing.
>
> Thank you.
>
> P. S. one day I'll play with IMEI too.
>
>
> 11/09/13 05:18 -ում, Michael Spacefalcon-ը գրել է:
>> Norayr Chilingarian  wrote:
>>
>>> Okay, so first thing I did is I have compiled loadtools, as planned
>>> right on freerunner.
>>> [...]
>>> After short build I have three binaries installed
>>> fc-iram fc-loadtool fc-xram
>>>
>>> I believe they will run.
>> Congrats, you have successfully navigated one part which I thought
>> would be very hard for most users.
>>
>> Using the loadtools you've got installed on your FR now, you can do
>> another important step: make a backup copy of your modem FFS.
>>
>> Step 1: run fc-loadtool like this (from inside the FR):
>>
>> fc-loadtool -h gta02 /dev/ttySAC0
>>
>> You should see a bunch of messages followed by a loadtool> prompt.
>>
>> Step 2: when you reach that prompt, enter this command:
>>
>> flash dump2bin my-flashdump.bin
>>
>> You should get a dump of your modem flash content in a file whose name
>> will be whatever you've entered as the last argument.  The file should
>> be 4 MiB long.  Transfer it from your FR to your PC and examine it
>> with your favourite hex viewer.  You should see the original fw image
>> (moko10 or moko11 or whatever you are running) in the first 2.25 MiB
>> or so, then blank flash (all FF bytes) until offset 0x38, then 7
>> sectors of 64 KiB each (0x7 bytes total) of FFS (flash file system),
>> then blank flash again for the last 64 KiB.
>>
>> Verify that the content of the flash dump is as expected, and save it
>> securely - having this backup copy will keep your FR from becoming a
>> brick in the case that some subsequent operation will destroy the RF
>> calibration values in FFS.
>>
>>> Then, I have tried to compile the firmware with supplied wine environment.
>>> [...]
>>> Inspite of using nowhine, I saw a lot of fontconfig warnings .
>> I never got those on my system; the whines I get from my wine are the
>> ones you can see in my cheesy nowhine.c source.  You are more than
>> welcome to edit nowhine.c and make it suppress whatever whines _you_
>> get. :-)))
>>
>>> Build fails, failed a couple of times, both by using nowhine or wine
>>> without wrappers.
>>>
>>> Because one windows utility, probably linker, fails
>>> http://norayr.arnet.am/tmp/2013-11-09/openmoko/wine_error.png
>> Yes, it is the linker indeed, which is bad news because one can't
>> build a firmware image without passing the linker step. :-(
>>
>>> Error details
>>> http://norayr.arnet.am/tmp/2013-11-09/openmoko/wine_error_details.png
>>> Backtrace: http://norayr.arnet.am/tmp/2013-11-09/openmoko/backtrace.txt
>> Not much I can do with these: I don't have source for TI's compiler
>> toolchain any more than you do, and I'm not a wine expert either.
>> See below regarding what system I use.
>>
>>> Report: http://norayr.arnet.am/tmp/2013-11-09/openmoko/report.txt
>> Looks as it should, except for the wine page fault error when running
>> vlnk470.
>>
>>> I wonder, if the problem is in my wine version or system setup.
>>> I have 32 bit wine running on x86_64 GNU/Linux, use it sometimes, and it
>>> worked fine before.
>> I use Slackware (a GNU/Linux distro for Luddites like me), all 32-bit
>> only, nothing x86_64 at all:
>>
>> hec@darkstar:~$ uname -a
>> Linux darkstar 2.6.37.6-smp #1 SMP Sun Jan 27 05:32:33 GMT 2013 i686 
>> Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU P8600  @ 2.40GHz GenuineIntel GNU/Linux
>> hec@darkstar:~$ cat /etc/slackware-version
>> Slackware 13.37.0
>> hec@darkstar:~$ wine --version
>> wine-1.5.23
>>
>>> I am sure, it would be much easier to debug and understand the problem
>>> in case of using native Unix build environment.
>> Yeah, no kidding!  Firmware that can only be built with a proprietary
>> compiler which exists only as Weendoze binaries for which none of us
>> has any source is not really free - hence my chosen subject for this
>> whole thread: "First small steps toward free GSM firmware", not "Free
>> GSM fw is finally here".  What we have so far is indeed only the first
>> small steps, not a complete victory yet.
>>
>> I am working on it, albeit at a snail's pace.  I've got an ex-TI person
>> helping me with my FreeCalypso project (when TI shu

Re: First small steps toward free GSM firmware

[Norayr Chilingarian]

Hehe, flashed your image!

http://norayr.arnet.am/tmp/2013-11-09/Screenshot-2_patched.png

Thanks a lot.
Let's see how it works. I don't use gsm usually, I'll check how gprs
works over gsm.
It did not work before, usually SHR did not want to connect.
But I also had problems with iliwi, so I usually connect to wifi by
hands, from terminal.
That way it works. So may be I am doing something wrong. But I would
like to learn to establish gprs connection from console.

Anyway, this was off topic.

The firmware flashed, will continue testing.

Thank you.

P. S. one day I'll play with IMEI too.


11/09/13 05:18 -ում, Michael Spacefalcon-ը գրել է:
> Norayr Chilingarian  wrote:
>
>> Okay, so first thing I did is I have compiled loadtools, as planned
>> right on freerunner.
>> [...]
>> After short build I have three binaries installed
>> fc-iram fc-loadtool fc-xram
>>
>> I believe they will run.
> Congrats, you have successfully navigated one part which I thought
> would be very hard for most users.
>
> Using the loadtools you've got installed on your FR now, you can do
> another important step: make a backup copy of your modem FFS.
>
> Step 1: run fc-loadtool like this (from inside the FR):
>
> fc-loadtool -h gta02 /dev/ttySAC0
>
> You should see a bunch of messages followed by a loadtool> prompt.
>
> Step 2: when you reach that prompt, enter this command:
>
> flash dump2bin my-flashdump.bin
>
> You should get a dump of your modem flash content in a file whose name
> will be whatever you've entered as the last argument.  The file should
> be 4 MiB long.  Transfer it from your FR to your PC and examine it
> with your favourite hex viewer.  You should see the original fw image
> (moko10 or moko11 or whatever you are running) in the first 2.25 MiB
> or so, then blank flash (all FF bytes) until offset 0x38, then 7
> sectors of 64 KiB each (0x7 bytes total) of FFS (flash file system),
> then blank flash again for the last 64 KiB.
>
> Verify that the content of the flash dump is as expected, and save it
> securely - having this backup copy will keep your FR from becoming a
> brick in the case that some subsequent operation will destroy the RF
> calibration values in FFS.
>
>> Then, I have tried to compile the firmware with supplied wine environment.
>> [...]
>> Inspite of using nowhine, I saw a lot of fontconfig warnings .
> I never got those on my system; the whines I get from my wine are the
> ones you can see in my cheesy nowhine.c source.  You are more than
> welcome to edit nowhine.c and make it suppress whatever whines _you_
> get. :-)))
>
>> Build fails, failed a couple of times, both by using nowhine or wine
>> without wrappers.
>>
>> Because one windows utility, probably linker, fails
>> http://norayr.arnet.am/tmp/2013-11-09/openmoko/wine_error.png
> Yes, it is the linker indeed, which is bad news because one can't
> build a firmware image without passing the linker step. :-(
>
>> Error details
>> http://norayr.arnet.am/tmp/2013-11-09/openmoko/wine_error_details.png
>> Backtrace: http://norayr.arnet.am/tmp/2013-11-09/openmoko/backtrace.txt
> Not much I can do with these: I don't have source for TI's compiler
> toolchain any more than you do, and I'm not a wine expert either.
> See below regarding what system I use.
>
>> Report: http://norayr.arnet.am/tmp/2013-11-09/openmoko/report.txt
> Looks as it should, except for the wine page fault error when running
> vlnk470.
>
>> I wonder, if the problem is in my wine version or system setup.
>> I have 32 bit wine running on x86_64 GNU/Linux, use it sometimes, and it
>> worked fine before.
> I use Slackware (a GNU/Linux distro for Luddites like me), all 32-bit
> only, nothing x86_64 at all:
>
> hec@darkstar:~$ uname -a
> Linux darkstar 2.6.37.6-smp #1 SMP Sun Jan 27 05:32:33 GMT 2013 i686 Intel(R) 
> Core(TM)2 Duo CPU P8600  @ 2.40GHz GenuineIntel GNU/Linux
> hec@darkstar:~$ cat /etc/slackware-version
> Slackware 13.37.0
> hec@darkstar:~$ wine --version
> wine-1.5.23
>
>> I am sure, it would be much easier to debug and understand the problem
>> in case of using native Unix build environment.
> Yeah, no kidding!  Firmware that can only be built with a proprietary
> compiler which exists only as Weendoze binaries for which none of us
> has any source is not really free - hence my chosen subject for this
> whole thread: "First small steps toward free GSM firmware", not "Free
> GSM fw is finally here".  What we have so far is indeed only the first
> small steps, not a complete victory yet.
>
> I am working on it, albeit at a snail's pace.  I've got an ex-TI person
> helping me with my FreeCalypso project (when TI shut their Wireless
> Terminal Business Unit down, a lot of people were out of a job - wasn't
> fun for those people, but guess why my FTP site now sports 4 different
> TI source leaks :), and with that person's help I was able to
> understand the overall architecture of how the major pieces fit
> together.  Now I have an arduous task in front of me: in o

Re: First small steps toward free GSM firmware

[Michael Spacefalcon]

Norayr Chilingarian  wrote:

> Okay, so first thing I did is I have compiled loadtools, as planned
> right on freerunner.
> [...]
> After short build I have three binaries installed
> fc-iram fc-loadtool fc-xram
>
> I believe they will run.

Congrats, you have successfully navigated one part which I thought
would be very hard for most users.

Using the loadtools you've got installed on your FR now, you can do
another important step: make a backup copy of your modem FFS.

Step 1: run fc-loadtool like this (from inside the FR):

fc-loadtool -h gta02 /dev/ttySAC0

You should see a bunch of messages followed by a loadtool> prompt.

Step 2: when you reach that prompt, enter this command:

flash dump2bin my-flashdump.bin

You should get a dump of your modem flash content in a file whose name
will be whatever you've entered as the last argument.  The file should
be 4 MiB long.  Transfer it from your FR to your PC and examine it
with your favourite hex viewer.  You should see the original fw image
(moko10 or moko11 or whatever you are running) in the first 2.25 MiB
or so, then blank flash (all FF bytes) until offset 0x38, then 7
sectors of 64 KiB each (0x7 bytes total) of FFS (flash file system),
then blank flash again for the last 64 KiB.

Verify that the content of the flash dump is as expected, and save it
securely - having this backup copy will keep your FR from becoming a
brick in the case that some subsequent operation will destroy the RF
calibration values in FFS.

> Then, I have tried to compile the firmware with supplied wine environment.
> [...]
> Inspite of using nowhine, I saw a lot of fontconfig warnings .

I never got those on my system; the whines I get from my wine are the
ones you can see in my cheesy nowhine.c source.  You are more than
welcome to edit nowhine.c and make it suppress whatever whines _you_
get. :-)))

> Build fails, failed a couple of times, both by using nowhine or wine
> without wrappers.
>
> Because one windows utility, probably linker, fails
> http://norayr.arnet.am/tmp/2013-11-09/openmoko/wine_error.png

Yes, it is the linker indeed, which is bad news because one can't
build a firmware image without passing the linker step. :-(

> Error details
> http://norayr.arnet.am/tmp/2013-11-09/openmoko/wine_error_details.png
> Backtrace: http://norayr.arnet.am/tmp/2013-11-09/openmoko/backtrace.txt

Not much I can do with these: I don't have source for TI's compiler
toolchain any more than you do, and I'm not a wine expert either.
See below regarding what system I use.

> Report: http://norayr.arnet.am/tmp/2013-11-09/openmoko/report.txt

Looks as it should, except for the wine page fault error when running
vlnk470.

> I wonder, if the problem is in my wine version or system setup.
> I have 32 bit wine running on x86_64 GNU/Linux, use it sometimes, and it
> worked fine before.

I use Slackware (a GNU/Linux distro for Luddites like me), all 32-bit
only, nothing x86_64 at all:

hec@darkstar:~$ uname -a
Linux darkstar 2.6.37.6-smp #1 SMP Sun Jan 27 05:32:33 GMT 2013 i686 Intel(R) 
Core(TM)2 Duo CPU P8600  @ 2.40GHz GenuineIntel GNU/Linux
hec@darkstar:~$ cat /etc/slackware-version
Slackware 13.37.0
hec@darkstar:~$ wine --version
wine-1.5.23

> I am sure, it would be much easier to debug and understand the problem
> in case of using native Unix build environment.

Yeah, no kidding!  Firmware that can only be built with a proprietary
compiler which exists only as Weendoze binaries for which none of us
has any source is not really free - hence my chosen subject for this
whole thread: "First small steps toward free GSM firmware", not "Free
GSM fw is finally here".  What we have so far is indeed only the first
small steps, not a complete victory yet.

I am working on it, albeit at a snail's pace.  I've got an ex-TI person
helping me with my FreeCalypso project (when TI shut their Wireless
Terminal Business Unit down, a lot of people were out of a job - wasn't
fun for those people, but guess why my FTP site now sports 4 different
TI source leaks :), and with that person's help I was able to
understand the overall architecture of how the major pieces fit
together.  Now I have an arduous task in front of me: in order to
rebuild the firmware in a sane environment (using gcc and all that
good stuff), I have to reintegrate the fw architecture piece to piece.

The dependency graph isn't cleanly-vertical, so it is not a simple
matter of the higher layers sitting atop the lower ones - almost every
piece depends on almost every other in some way.  So I have to take
one low-level piece, temporarily remove whatever dependencies it likely
has on other pieces which I haven't got to yet, and get that piece
integrated in my gcc-built fw tree.  Then add the next piece in the
same manner, and at some point I'll get to re-enabling the things I
had to temporarily stub out to get the first pieces to compile and
link...  Not fun at all, but I don't see any other way.

You are more than welcome to see my pro

Re: First small steps toward free GSM firmware

[Norayr Chilingarian]

Okay, so first thing I did is I have compiled loadtools, as planned
right on freerunner.

opkg install gcc
opkg install gcc-symlinks
opkg install libc6-dev
opkg install binutils
opkg install make

and synced time before build.

/etc/init.d/fsotdld restart

then I have edited makefile, as suggested in readme, set CFLAGS to
CFLAGS= -O2 -march=armv4t -mtune=arm920t -DGTA0x_AP_BUILD

and
EXTRA_OBJ=gtapower.o

After short build I have three binaries installed
fc-iram fc-loadtool fc-xram

I believe they will run.

Then, I have tried to compile the firmware with supplied wine environment.

Downloaded nowhine.c, built and installed it.

Unpacked environment in drive_c directory of .wine in my home.

Inspite of using nowhine, I saw a lot of fontconfig warnings .

Build fails, failed a couple of times, both by using nowhine or wine
without wrappers.

Because one windows utility, probably linker, fails
http://norayr.arnet.am/tmp/2013-11-09/openmoko/wine_error.png
Error details
http://norayr.arnet.am/tmp/2013-11-09/openmoko/wine_error_details.png
Backtrace: http://norayr.arnet.am/tmp/2013-11-09/openmoko/backtrace.txt
Report: http://norayr.arnet.am/tmp/2013-11-09/openmoko/report.txt

I wonder, if the problem is in my wine version or system setup.
I have 32 bit wine running on x86_64 GNU/Linux, use it sometimes, and it
worked fine before.


I am sure, it would be much easier to debug and understand the problem
in case of using native Unix build environment. Or error would not
present at all.
Thanks for any further hints.

Norayr


10/30/13 12:42 -ում, Michael Spacefalcon-ը գրել է:
> "dmatthews.org"  wrote:
>
>> This is something I've quietly had an interest in for a year plus.
> Yup, I remember you from 2011. :-)
>
>> I'd like to suggest that it would be beneficial not only to have some hand
>> holding for people that want to compile, but also sample binary for those of
>> us that may not have easy access to necessary hardware and software.
> Compiling the leo2moko version of the GSM fw from the semi-src does
> not require any special software, let alone hardware: the hardware is
> any regular PC, the software is your favourite GNU/Linux distribution
> with working Wine.  Nothing more is needed: if you have a system with
> working Wine, just unpack my tarballs and run the winebuild.sh script.
>
> However, having a prebuilt binary of the leo2moko GSM fw (to encourage
> prospective testers from the shy-land) does sound like a good idea, so
> I have just put one out:
>
> ftp://ftp.ifctf.org/pub/GSM/FreeCalypso/leo2moko-r1-bin.tar.bz2
>
> Or was your reference to "necessary hardware and software" regarding
> the flashing process, rather than compiling the gsm-fw.m0 image
> itself?
>
> Regarding the flashing process, I do agree that the current barrier to
> entry is still a little too high and could use some lowering.  As
> things stand right now, if you want to do your own flashing operations
> on the GSM modem in your GTA02, the following skills/tools are
> required:
>
> 1. Whatever distro you are running on your FR, you need to know it
>inside out: you need to know how to ssh into your phone, how to
>kill gsmd or whatever process talks to the modem (and to ensure
>that it doesn't get restarted until you are done flashing your new
>fw and wish to test it live), and how to twiddle the power_on and
>download controls for the modem under /sys, as appropriate for
>whichever GTA02 kernel version you are running.
>
> 2a. You need to be able to cross-compile my fc-loadtool utility to run
> on the application (Linux) processor of your GTA02, and do it in a
> way that will be compatible with your distro from the previous
> paragraph.  (I could send you my binary, built with some
> CodeSourcery toolchain for my Buildroot AP environment, but I
> doubt that one would be able to just plop it into SHR or QtMoko or
> whatever, and have it "just work".)
>
> -or-
>
> 2b. You need to buy a "T191 unlock" cable that would plug into your
> Neo's headset jack - in that case you would be able to run
> fc-loadtool from your GNU/Linux PC, removing the need to build it
> for running from inside the Neo.  But even with this magic cable,
> you would still need to satisfy requirement 1 above: you still
> need to ensure that there is no gsmd etc running, and you'll need
> to twiddle the download and power_on modem sysfs nodes by sshing
> into the phone.
>
> I'm thinking that one possible way to lower this entry barrier would
> be to produce and publish a bootable SD card image with the following
> features:
>
> * A known environment, eliminating the "whatever FR distro you happen
>   to be running" factor;
>
> * Specifically designed for manual poking at the GSM modem - no gsmd
>   and no "normal" functionality;
>
> * Have the special Linux image come up with the headset jack serial
>   channel enabled and with the device screen showing pressable buttons
>   for "Modem ON" and 

Re: First small steps toward free GSM firmware

[Norayr Chilingarian]

No, it's not fixed. I'll try one day. (:

10/30/13 12:50 -???, Radek Polak-?  ?:
>  
>
> Do you have fixed hardware and enabled deep sleep? I can get standby
> of 4 days with my Freerunner.
>
>  
>
> BR
>
>  
>
> Radek
>

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Re: First small steps toward free GSM firmware

[Radek Polak]

On Wednesday, October 30, 2013 08:33:28 AM Norayr Chilingarian wrote:

> I believe that I can do all those steps without difficulty. Also, I am
> motivated to try this firmware because with current moko11 fw, battery is
> getting drained too fast, it doesn't work for whole day.

Do you have fixed hardware and enabled deep sleep? I can get standby of 4 days 
with my Freerunner.

BR

Radek
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Re: First small steps toward free GSM firmware

[Norayr Chilingarian]

okay (:

10/29/13 02:03 -ում, Michael Spacefalcon-ը գրել է:
> P.S. If anyone manages to get as far as the loadtool> prompt, please
> give me a shout before you type any flash erase or flash program
> commands - I would not want you to ruin your device by wiping out its
> very hard-to-recover RF calibration data. 


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Re: First small steps toward free GSM firmware

[Norayr Chilingarian]

I believe that I can do all those steps without difficulty. Also, I am 
motivated to try this firmware because with current moko11 fw, battery is 
getting drained too fast, it doesn't work for whole day. May be the battery is 
in bad condition, but anyway, I can do it. I just need a free day, I hope to 
find a couple of free hours in the nearest Sunday, or may be the next one..

>Ahmm, asking for "some level of maturity" before one is willing to
>even *test* a piece of software is rather dysfunctional.  How would
>the sw *ever* reach any level of maturity without some people testing
>it early on, reporting their experiences, sending bug reports etc?
>Therefore, *someone* needs to be willing to act as an adventurous
>alpha tester, trying out what exists currently.


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Re: First small steps toward free GSM firmware

[Michael Spacefalcon]

"dmatthews.org"  wrote:

> This is something I've quietly had an interest in for a year plus.

Yup, I remember you from 2011. :-)

> I'd like to suggest that it would be beneficial not only to have some hand
> holding for people that want to compile, but also sample binary for those of
> us that may not have easy access to necessary hardware and software.

Compiling the leo2moko version of the GSM fw from the semi-src does
not require any special software, let alone hardware: the hardware is
any regular PC, the software is your favourite GNU/Linux distribution
with working Wine.  Nothing more is needed: if you have a system with
working Wine, just unpack my tarballs and run the winebuild.sh script.

However, having a prebuilt binary of the leo2moko GSM fw (to encourage
prospective testers from the shy-land) does sound like a good idea, so
I have just put one out:

ftp://ftp.ifctf.org/pub/GSM/FreeCalypso/leo2moko-r1-bin.tar.bz2

Or was your reference to "necessary hardware and software" regarding
the flashing process, rather than compiling the gsm-fw.m0 image
itself?

Regarding the flashing process, I do agree that the current barrier to
entry is still a little too high and could use some lowering.  As
things stand right now, if you want to do your own flashing operations
on the GSM modem in your GTA02, the following skills/tools are
required:

1. Whatever distro you are running on your FR, you need to know it
   inside out: you need to know how to ssh into your phone, how to
   kill gsmd or whatever process talks to the modem (and to ensure
   that it doesn't get restarted until you are done flashing your new
   fw and wish to test it live), and how to twiddle the power_on and
   download controls for the modem under /sys, as appropriate for
   whichever GTA02 kernel version you are running.

2a. You need to be able to cross-compile my fc-loadtool utility to run
on the application (Linux) processor of your GTA02, and do it in a
way that will be compatible with your distro from the previous
paragraph.  (I could send you my binary, built with some
CodeSourcery toolchain for my Buildroot AP environment, but I
doubt that one would be able to just plop it into SHR or QtMoko or
whatever, and have it "just work".)

-or-

2b. You need to buy a "T191 unlock" cable that would plug into your
Neo's headset jack - in that case you would be able to run
fc-loadtool from your GNU/Linux PC, removing the need to build it
for running from inside the Neo.  But even with this magic cable,
you would still need to satisfy requirement 1 above: you still
need to ensure that there is no gsmd etc running, and you'll need
to twiddle the download and power_on modem sysfs nodes by sshing
into the phone.

I'm thinking that one possible way to lower this entry barrier would
be to produce and publish a bootable SD card image with the following
features:

* A known environment, eliminating the "whatever FR distro you happen
  to be running" factor;

* Specifically designed for manual poking at the GSM modem - no gsmd
  and no "normal" functionality;

* Have the special Linux image come up with the headset jack serial
  channel enabled and with the device screen showing pressable buttons
  for "Modem ON" and "Modem OFF" - thus anyone using the headset jack
  serial cable method would have no remaining barriers;

* Have the image also come up with ssh access via USB enabled, and
  have fc-loadtool and some other tools already available inside -
  thus anyone using the sans-special-cable method would be able to ssh
  into the phone in a known way and run commands which can be given
  verbatim with no sophisticated preparations needed.

Producing a Linux image like the above won't be an overnight deal, but
it is something that I can work toward.

> I might have had some qualms about repercussions of using this software
> in Europe,

Why?  The radio transmissions from the illegally-free fw are strictly
identical to those produced by the original (presumably legal) mokoN
firmware, so how would anyone ever detect that you are using my
illegally-free fw?  The physical appearance of the device (as would be
seen by a cop pulling you over on a highway for driving too fast or
whatever) also does not change with illegal fw flashing, so if the
device looked like a legal cellphone originally, it will still look
the same...

> I'd be able and would love to test once this effort approaches some level
> of maturity.

Ahmm, asking for "some level of maturity" before one is willing to
even *test* a piece of software is rather dysfunctional.  How would
the sw *ever* reach any level of maturity without some people testing
it early on, reporting their experiences, sending bug reports etc?
Therefore, *someone* needs to be willing to act as an adventurous
alpha tester, trying out what exists currently.

I do concede though that the barrier to entry for prospective testers
needs to be lowered, so I won't be holdin

Re: First small steps toward free GSM firmware

[dmatthews.org]

This is something I've quietly had an interest in for a year plus.

I'd like to suggest that it would be beneficial not only to have some hand 
holding for people that want to compile, but also sample binary for those of us 
that may not have easy access to necessary hardware and software.

I might have had some qualms about repercussions of using this software in 
Europe, but I'm moving somewhere with good network coverage, only difficult 
access to other IT facilities and the PTB overwhelmed with priorities other 
than some guy messing with his phone.

I'd be able and would love to test once this effort approaches some level of 
maturity.


-- 
David Matthews 
m...@dmatthews.org

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Re: First small steps toward free GSM firmware

[Michael Spacefalcon]

Ian Stirling  wrote:

> However, once anyone has used your work to change the IMSI of their 
> phone

I assume you meant IMEI.  Phones don't have IMSIs, those are numbers
stored in SIM cards.

> and you are aware of this,

Yes, I will most likely be aware of it, as I will gladly hand-hold any
criminal or want-to-be-criminal through the process of changing their
IMEI.

Just as an FYI - if you use the competing OsmocomBB software (which is
much more readily accepted by this community), transmitting whatever
IMEI you like toward the GSM network is even easier: because OsmocomBB
doesn't know how to parse TI's FFS (flash file system) format and to
extract the IMEI (or the RF calibration values) from it, there is no
IMEI "changing" with OsmocomBB per se.  With OsmocomBB you *always*
have to enter your own IMEI manually in their CLI, and the software
has no psychic powers to tell whether or not the number you've entered
matches what's printed on the sticker inside the battery compartment.

So if all you are after is transmitting a "false" IMEI toward GSM
networks, a very easy way to do so has been available through
OsmocomBB for many years before my recent work.  Changing the IMEI in
FFS (where either the phone's original firmware or my illegally-free
replacement will read and use it) is necessary only if you want to not
only transmit a "false" IMEI, but also retain the full functionality
of the phone - OsmocomBB lacks the latter.

> if you do not stop distribution,

Of course I won't stop distribution, I don't bow down to any f***ing
governments.

> you are liable to conviction
> and a term of imprisonment not to exceed 5 years.
> http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2002/31/section/2

UK laws don't apply to me as I have no plans of ever setting foot on
UK soil.

> This is a poorly drawn bit of legislation, and in principle could also 
> cover the operator of any
> website hosting such code, once the operator becomes aware that they are 
> facilitating this.

Yet another reason why I don't use any servers other than my very own:
I would not want to entrust the distribution of my software to some
cowardly "law-abiding" webhost who would take my ware down out of fear
of being sued or prosecuted or whatever.

> In principle, this could lead to an EU arrest warrant,

I have no plans of setting foot on EU soil either.

> or even a request for extradition.

This one is truly laughable - I am the sovereign of my own micronation.
What are they gonna do, send a diplomat to the Micronation of Falconia
asking me to extradite myself?

Paul Wise  wrote:

> > There are separate issues around the IP that you do not have permission to
> > use.
>
> This is the illegality that he is referring to, not any potential
> spectrum/GSM/IMEI issues.

Correct.

> I guess he would ignore the latter as well as the former though.

Also correct.

VLR,
SF

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Re: First small steps toward free GSM firmware

[Paul Wise]

On Tue, Oct 29, 2013 at 8:44 AM, Ian Stirling wrote:

> There are separate issues around the IP that you do not have permission to
> use.

This is the illegality that he is referring to, not any potential
spectrum/GSM/IMEI issues. I guess he would ignore the latter as well
as the former though.

On the other hand the Osmocom folks have some notes about potential
legal issues with their work:

http://openbsc.osmocom.org/trac/wiki/SoftwareLicensing
http://bb.osmocom.org/trac/wiki/LegalAspects
http://openbsc.osmocom.org/trac/wiki/LegalNotes

-- 
bye,
pabs

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Re: First small steps toward free GSM firmware

[Ian Stirling]

On 10/28/2013 10:03 PM, Michael Spacefalcon wrote:
* Most of the Openmoko community sees my FreeCalypso work as being 
illegal, because they have voluntarily chosen to live and/or accept 
citizenship in repressive countries which deem it to be so. I suspect 
that the power-keepers of the Om Wiki would not want to have anything 
to do with my illegal project and its equally illegal fruits.


Speaking personally, and from a UK perspective, your work is not illegal 
in the UK as such.
Someone can freely load it onto a calypso device, and use it in a 
completely shielded room.
Or perhaps even after requesting the appropriate permissions use it 
on-air. (I suspect this will be

impractical in the UK).

However, once anyone has used your work to change the IMSI of their 
phone (this needs to lead to
no other offence), and you are aware of this, if you do not stop 
distribution, you are liable to conviction

and a term of imprisonment not to exceed 5 years.
http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2002/31/section/2

This is a poorly drawn bit of legislation, and in principle could also 
cover the operator of any
website hosting such code, once the operator becomes aware that they are 
facilitating this.


In principle, this could lead to an EU arrest warrant, or even a request 
for extradition.


There are separate issues around the IP that you do not have permission 
to use.


In practice - I would be truly astonished if, unless the above tool were 
to be used in a very serious

crime, as one of its critical elements, any conviction would result.

There were 5 convictions in 2004-5. I'm unable to find any recent ones.

The above law is  justified IMO - simply as reprogramming a phones IMSI 
removes it from the UK block
list. This means that it has lots more value, and can be resold. It 
having more value means that criminals

will attempt to take it from people, with the use of force.



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Re: First small steps toward free GSM firmware

[Michael Spacefalcon]

Norayr Chilingarian  wrote:

> Why not add information about free fw and loader to the mentioned wiki page?
> So that people who are not in this mailing list, may know about this fw
> and a free fc-load tool.

Adding the info to the wiki would be a good idea indeed, but there
would be several difficulties with that:

* Editing the wiki requires a login account; I don't have one and
  don't feel comfortable asking for one.

* Most of the Openmoko community sees my FreeCalypso work as being
  illegal, because they have voluntarily chosen to live and/or accept
  citizenship in repressive countries which deem it to be so.  I
  suspect that the power-keepers of the Om Wiki would not want to have
  anything to do with my illegal project and its equally illegal
  fruits.

> Also, it would be good to have step by step instructions like get this
> source here,

These 3 tarballs contain everything one would need:

ftp://ftp.ifctf.org/pub/GSM/FreeCalypso/leo2moko-r1.tar.xz  -- the source
ftp://ftp.ifctf.org/pub/GSM/TI_src/wine/installed-env.tar.xz-- build tools
ftp://ftp.ifctf.org/pub/GSM/FreeCalypso/loadtools-r1.tar.bz2-- free flasher

> compile it like that,

The leo2moko and loadtools tarballs contain README files with
compilation instructions.

> get another source there, compile it,

See above.

> and run this command with these arguments.

The README file in the loadtools package tells you how to run
fc-loadtool as well.

I will grant though, that my current instructions are written assuming
a highly technical user, and it would indeed be beneficial to have
another, more hand-holding version for more novice users.  What we
need for that is a community volunteer who would be both able and
willing to produce one.  I.e., we need a community volunteer who can
work with someone like me on one end (understand my instructions etc),
and also be in touch with more novice users on the other end.

Anyone wants to volunteer?  All you would need to do is to go through
the process of compiling and flashing my GSM firmware into your GTA02,
become comfortable with the process, and then document it for others
who would need more novice-friendly hand-holding.

If you or anyone else would like to give it a try, you can start by
downloading the 3 tarballs listed above and then attempting to follow
the steps in the README files inside.  Tell me where you get stuck,
and I'll help you navigate that step.  If you can go through the
process once, even if it requires a lot of hand-holding from me,
chances are good that you would then be able to document the process
for others at the less technical level.

VLR,
SF

P.S. If anyone manages to get as far as the loadtool> prompt, please
give me a shout before you type any flash erase or flash program
commands - I would not want you to ruin your device by wiping out its
very hard-to-recover RF calibration data.  If you succeed in reaching
the loadtool> prompt, stop there and ask for further assistance - I
will then tell you how to save those precious RF calibration values.

There is no possibility of damage until you reach that loadtool>
prompt and type a flash erase or flash program command though, so
prior to reaching that point, there is nothing to worry about - please
play freely!

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Re: First small steps toward free GSM firmware

[Norayr Chilingarian]

Why not add information about free fw and loader to the mentioned wiki page?
So that people who are not in this mailing list, may know about this fw
and a free fc-load tool.

Also, it would be good to have step by step instructions like get this
source here, compile it like that, get another source there, compile it,
and run this command with these arguments.

10/22/13 10:21 -ում, Michael Spacefalcon-ը գրել է:
> Jose Luis Perez Diez  wrote:
>
>> The procces to flash GSM firmware used linux, the serial port,
>> and the fluid binary see 
>>
>> http://wiki.openmoko.org/wiki/GSM/Flashing#Manual_Update_.28GTA01.2C_GTA02.29_.2F_geek_way
> Yes, and that exact same procedure should work just as well if you
> substitute your own *.m0 image built from my leo2moko-r1.tar.xz source
> in the place of calypso-moko11.m0.  I say "should" because I haven't
> tried it myself - like Richard Stallman, I avoid proprietary software,
> so I use my own fc-loadtool instead of that fluid.exe for which I have
> no corresponding source.
>
> Just give it a try - if you don't like my illegally-free GSM fw, you
> can always reflash back to the official calypso-moko11.m0.
> Patryk Benderz  wrote:
>
>> Can't we just use dfu-util?
> The GSM modem has its own processor, its own independent address space,
> its own address and data buses, and its own independent flash memory
> (NOR in a Multi-Chip Package combined with SRAM).  Neither dfu-util
> nor the AP (application processor) bootloader it is talking to knows
> anything about that separate hardware block.
>
> In order to reflash the GSM modem, one needs to establish communication
> with Calypso's own boot ROM.  That can be done either from a running
> Linux system on the phone's AP (i.e., from inside the phone) or
> externally via a classic "T191 unlock" cable plugged into the headset
> jack.  (The latter approach makes more sense for FreeCalypso
> developers.)  Either way, one needs Linux software running on the
> phone's AP in order to control the power to the modem and to enable
> the headset jack serial channel if you wish to use the latter.
>
> VLR,
> SF
>
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Re: First small steps toward free GSM firmware

[Michael Spacefalcon]

Jose Luis Perez Diez  wrote:

> The procces to flash GSM firmware used linux, the serial port,
> and the fluid binary see 
>
> http://wiki.openmoko.org/wiki/GSM/Flashing#Manual_Update_.28GTA01.2C_GTA02.29_.2F_geek_way

Yes, and that exact same procedure should work just as well if you
substitute your own *.m0 image built from my leo2moko-r1.tar.xz source
in the place of calypso-moko11.m0.  I say "should" because I haven't
tried it myself - like Richard Stallman, I avoid proprietary software,
so I use my own fc-loadtool instead of that fluid.exe for which I have
no corresponding source.

Just give it a try - if you don't like my illegally-free GSM fw, you
can always reflash back to the official calypso-moko11.m0.

Patryk Benderz  wrote:

> Can't we just use dfu-util?

The GSM modem has its own processor, its own independent address space,
its own address and data buses, and its own independent flash memory
(NOR in a Multi-Chip Package combined with SRAM).  Neither dfu-util
nor the AP (application processor) bootloader it is talking to knows
anything about that separate hardware block.

In order to reflash the GSM modem, one needs to establish communication
with Calypso's own boot ROM.  That can be done either from a running
Linux system on the phone's AP (i.e., from inside the phone) or
externally via a classic "T191 unlock" cable plugged into the headset
jack.  (The latter approach makes more sense for FreeCalypso
developers.)  Either way, one needs Linux software running on the
phone's AP in order to control the power to the modem and to enable
the headset jack serial channel if you wish to use the latter.

VLR,
SF

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Re: First small steps toward free GSM firmware

[Jose Luis Perez Diez]

El Tuesday 22 October 2013 09:51:07 Patryk Benderz va escriure:
> cut]
> > You can thus use either fc-loadtool or the original fluid.exe to flash
> [cut]
> Can't we just use dfu-util? It was used to write OS to NAND... and AFAIR
> it was also used to flash GSM firmware?...
> 
The procces to flash GSM firmware used linux, the serial port, and the fluid 
binary see 

http://wiki.openmoko.org/wiki/GSM/Flashing#Manual_Update_.28GTA01.2C_GTA02.29_.2F_geek_way

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Re: First small steps toward free GSM firmware

[Patryk Benderz]

[cut]
> You can thus use either fc-loadtool or the original fluid.exe to flash
[cut]
Can't we just use dfu-util? It was used to write OS to NAND... and AFAIR
it was also used to flash GSM firmware?...

-- 
Patryk "LeadMan" Benderz
Linux Registered User #377521
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Re: First small steps toward free GSM firmware

[Michael Spacefalcon]

For those following the FreeCalypso project, I have just put out a
packaged release of my GSM flash reading/writing etc tools:

ftp://ftp.ifctf.org/pub/GSM/FreeCalypso/loadtools-r1.tar.bz2

Of course the source for these tools has been available all along in
my freecalypso-sw Hg repository on bitbucket.org and in my snapshot
tarballs on the FTP site, but the release I've just put out includes a
prebuilt loadagent.srec image as well, so you can now compile and run
my fc-loadtool utility without having to build an ARM7 cross-compiler
toolchain first (to compile loadagent for the Calypso target).

My fc-loadtool is a free (source-enabled) replacement for TI's
proprietary FLUID tool documented on the now-classic Wiki page:

http://wiki.openmoko.org/wiki/GSM/Flashing

The *.m0 byte-reversed S-record format for GSM firmware images appears
to have been used in all of TI's builds, both Calypso and the later
LoCosto etc (see the http://scottn.us/downloads/peek/ find, for example),
so it is no surprise that the "official" mokoN images linked to from
the above wiki page use this format.  My leo2moko port, which builds
with TI's original toolchain under Wine, produces an image in the same
format as well.

My fc-loadtool can flash these *.m0 images as well as the more standard
S-record and binary formats; I don't know too much about the exact
capabilities of TI's FLUID as I never found a source for that one.

You can thus use either fc-loadtool or the original fluid.exe to flash
either an official mokoN image or an image you built yourself from my
leo2moko port, i.e., the compatibility matrix is complete.

Enjoy!

Viva la Revolucion,
SF

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Re: First small steps toward free GSM firmware

[Bob Ham]

On Wed, 2013-10-16 at 14:30 -0500, Troy Benjegerdes wrote:

> > > Afaik you can use it legally if you connect it directly to your own base
> > > station.

> The other approach would be to start a kickstarter/selfstarter to buy some 
> spectrum licenses

That's not really necessary; GSM development licenses are not expensive.
I understand in Germany a 12-month license costs around €130.  In the UK
it is £50.

-- 
Bob Ham 

for (;;) { ++pancakes; }


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Re: First small steps toward free GSM firmware

[Troy Benjegerdes]

> > Afaik you can use it legally if you connect it directly to your own base
> > station.
> 
> If you connect it by shielded cable or if you place both in a big shielded 
> box.
> I.e.  if the spurious emissions stay below some defined level and don't 
> disturb

If you can demonstrate you know what you are doing, and use the 900mhz amatuer 
radio band in the US, you are fine.

http://blog.marinetelecom.net/2010/08/01/ham-radio-operator-chris-paget-kj6gcg-spoofs-as-900mhz-gsm-tower-and-15-phones-in-defcon-hacker-convention-log-onto-his-network/

The other approach would be to start a kickstarter/selfstarter to buy some 
spectrum licenses, and permit ONLY devices that have debian-free-software 
guidelines compliant firmware to transmit on those frequencies.

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Re: First small steps toward free GSM firmware

[Michael Spacefalcon]

Norayr Chilingarian  wrote:

> > then flash into your GTA0x GSM modem
> Wait, it works both on gta-02 and gta-04?

By GTA0x I meant GTA01 and GTA02.  GolDeliCo' so-called "GTA04" is
rather badly misnamed: GTA originally stood for "GSM-TI-AGPS"; thus a
device that does not use a GSM chipset from TI cannot be properly
called GTA0x.

It is also quite misleading that Nikolaus markets his product as an
"upgrade" to the good old Openmoko phones, as it is actually a
downgrade: it replaces a free-able GSM modem (i.e., one on which the
ability to run 100% free fw is within reach) with a non-freeable one,
i.e., one on which such freeing is totally out of reach.

And for the record, regarding the recent prolonged debate on this
mailing list about the freeness of GolDeliCo's product or lack thereof,
I agree totally with Bob Ham.  However, I differ from Bob in that in
my view, the closed proprietary nature of Nikolaus' product is not
worth shedding any tears over because it is a useless product in the
first place.  The good old GTA02 from Openmoko is a MUCH better phone
than any "GTA04".

> Also, did you test if data connection works?

Only CSD, not GPRS.  I.e., I have tested CSD and saw it working; as to
GPRS, I haven't tested it because I have not yet learned it well
enough, but I suspect that it works - please test it yourself and let
the list know what you find.

> I don't use phone calls,
> only encrypted ssl over tcp over 3g/wifi.

There is no 3G on the real GTA0x, i.e., on GTA01/02.

> I am very interested if this can be flashed to gta-02 device,

I have it flashed into mine. :)

> (unfortunately I don't own gta-04).

Don't say "unfortunately", you are very fortunate to have a much
better device, which are sadly no longer made, and even more sadly,
the leftover stock of Om-made ones is rapidly being destroyed by
people like Nikolaus who cannibalize these great phones for plastic
parts to make their inferior "GTA04"...

> Also, is there is a possibility to
> change IMEI during flashing?

Yes, you can change the IMEI quite easily to whatever you like, and in
fact the ability to do so is completely independent of which fw you
use: my current leo2moko port, the future full FreeCalypso fw, or even
the original factory fw from Om.

The modem has a total of 4 MiB of its own NOR flash, divided (hw-wise
inside the chip) into two banks: a 3 MiB bank at the lower addresses
and a 1 MiB bank at the higher addresses.  The lower-addressed 3 MiB
bank holds the fw image - that is what you erase and overwrite when
you reflash from moko10 to moko11 for example, or when you flash my
FreeCalypso firmware.  The higher-addressed 1 MiB bank (or more
precisely, 7 sectors of 64 KiB each within that bank) holds the modem's
FFS (flash file system) in a TI-invented format - one which I had
successfully reverse-engineered even before I found the source, I
should add.

Whatever you do, DO NOT DESTROY YOUR ORIGINAL MODEM FFS!  The original
GSM modem FFS from Om's factory contains RF calibration data, and if
you lose these calibration values, your precious GTA0x will become a
brick (at least GSM-wise) unless you can get that RF calibration
redone.  For an idea of what kind of special RF test equipment would
be needed to redo the RF calibration, see this document from TI:

ftp://ifctfvax.Harhan.ORG/pub/GSM/Calypso/rf_calibration.pdf

Needless to say, redoing the RF calibration would be *very* expensive.

My fc-loadtool utility (which you will need to compile from source
from my freecalypso-sw Mercurial tree) allows one to read out the
content of a flash memory region and to save it into a file.  If you
are going to do any hacking at all on your GTA0x GSM modem, I recommend
that you make a dump of your FFS sectors (containing these precious RF
calibration values) and save that dump very securely, before you do
anything else.

The IMEI is stored in the same FFS as the RF calibration values, just
in a different part of the directory hierarchy: the IMEI lives in an
8-byte file named /pcm/IMEI; the RF calibration data live in a bunch
of files under /gsm/rf.  I have not yet written a utility to edit that
/pcm/IMEI file inside the FFS image in a user-friendly manner, so for
now you would need to use a hex editor - the IMEI is stored in a very
simple unobfuscated form in that /pcm/IMEI file.

> Sorry if my questions are a little bit off topic. Anyway I am very
> interested in free fw for my devices - OM gta-02 and n900.

See above regarding Om GTA02.  As to the N900 from Nokia, I doubt that
much freeing can be done with its BB5 modem: I don't know of any
leaked hw docs (let alone fw sources) for that modem, and I've heard
something about it having a crypto-signature-checking bootloader - we
are VERY fortunately to NOT have one of the latter in the Calypso!

(Calypso's on-die ROM bootloader is actually awesome - not only is it
 completely non-"secure", but it is also completely unbrickable: no
 matter what state you get your flash into, one can *always* 

Re: First small steps toward free GSM firmware

[Bob Ham]

On Wed, 2013-10-16 at 20:03 +0200, Dr. H. Nikolaus Schaller wrote:
> Am 16.10.2013 um 19:31 schrieb Timo Juhani Lindfors:
> > Balint Szente  writes:

> >> What is not clear for me is that can a software be FSF/OSI "free" but
> >> illegal to use?
> 
> "Free" is a term only considering copyright. I.e. it is licenced under 
> "copyleft".

This is incorrect.  Copyleft and software freedom are different
concepts.  For example, BSD code is free software but not copyleft.  The
FSF explicitly describes the BSD license as a free software license:

  'This is a lax, permissive non-copyleft free software license'

https://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html#OriginalBSD

-- 
Bob Ham 

for (;;) { ++pancakes; }


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Re: First small steps toward free GSM firmware

[Dr. H. Nikolaus Schaller]

Am 16.10.2013 um 19:31 schrieb Timo Juhani Lindfors:

> Balint Szente  writes:
>> Isn't the situation the same with osmocombb as well?
>> 
>> Based on what is written here:
>> 
>> can osmocombb considered free software in FSF's or OSI's definition?
>> What is not clear for me is that can a software be FSF/OSI "free" but
>> illegal to use?

"Free" is a term only considering copyright. I.e. it is licenced under 
"copyleft".

But general usage of some hardware may be regulated by many other laws.
Customs, export, radio emissions, safety etc. Everything in life is more or less
regulated. And in most cases you are happy that it is (look e.g. at aviation
regulation and safety).

> 
> Afaik you can use it legally if you connect it directly to your own base
> station.

If you connect it by shielded cable or if you place both in a big shielded box.
I.e.  if the spurious emissions stay below some defined level and don't disturb
other services (which includes the public GSM network).


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Re: First small steps toward free GSM firmware

[Timo Juhani Lindfors]

Balint Szente  writes:
> Isn't the situation the same with osmocombb as well?
>
> Based on what is written here:
> 
> can osmocombb considered free software in FSF's or OSI's definition?
> What is not clear for me is that can a software be FSF/OSI "free" but
> illegal to use?

Afaik you can use it legally if you connect it directly to your own base
station.




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Re: First small steps toward free GSM firmware

[Nick]

Quoth Balint Szente:
> On Wed, 16 Oct 2013 11:49:30 +0300
> Timo Juhani Lindfors  wrote:
> 
> > Norayr Chilingarian  writes:
> > > Sorry if my questions are a little bit off topic. Anyway I am very
> > > interested in free fw for my devices - OM gta-02 and n900.
> > ^^^
> > 
> > Afaik the firmware in question won't meet the FSF free software
> > definition or OSI open source definition since you don't have a
> > license that lets you share and change it legally. If you want free
> > software firmware that runs on gta02 you can take a look at osmocombb.
> 
> Isn't the situation the same with osmocombb as well?
> 
> Based on what is written here:
> 
> can osmocombb considered free software in FSF's or OSI's definition?
> What is not clear for me is that can a software be FSF/OSI "free" but
> illegal to use?

The situation with osmocombb is similar, but not the same. In both 
cases the software is practically modifiable and redistributable, 
but not legally so. In the case of OsmocomBB, I think redistribution 
would be fine, it's just using it that would be forbidden. In the 
case of this firmware, it's forbidden to use it for the same reason, 
but there are also copyright claims which would disallow 
redistribution as well.

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Re: First small steps toward free GSM firmware

[Ian Stirling]

On 10/16/2013 10:13 AM, Balint Szente wrote:
What is not clear for me is that can a software be FSF/OSI "free" but 
illegal to use? 


In principle, one can take osmocombb through your local approvals 
process, and get it approved for use in your country.
It may also be legal to use in certain circumstances, for example one of 
the US bands for ISM - sort of
open-access - is the same as one of the EU cellphone bands. Many 
cellphones will use this band happily

in the USA.
And if you can get the approval of the local government, it can be 
entirely fine.


Pretty much the same with encryption - PGP is not legal to use everywhere.
That doesn't make it not free software.

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Re: First small steps toward free GSM firmware

[Balint Szente]

On Wed, 16 Oct 2013 11:49:30 +0300
Timo Juhani Lindfors  wrote:

> Norayr Chilingarian  writes:
> > Sorry if my questions are a little bit off topic. Anyway I am very
> > interested in free fw for my devices - OM gta-02 and n900.
> ^^^
> 
> Afaik the firmware in question won't meet the FSF free software
> definition or OSI open source definition since you don't have a
> license that lets you share and change it legally. If you want free
> software firmware that runs on gta02 you can take a look at osmocombb.

Isn't the situation the same with osmocombb as well?

Based on what is written here:

can osmocombb considered free software in FSF's or OSI's definition?
What is not clear for me is that can a software be FSF/OSI "free" but
illegal to use?

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Re: First small steps toward free GSM firmware

[Timo Juhani Lindfors]

Norayr Chilingarian  writes:
> Sorry if my questions are a little bit off topic. Anyway I am very
> interested in free fw for my devices - OM gta-02 and n900.
^^^

Afaik the firmware in question won't meet the FSF free software
definition or OSI open source definition since you don't have a license
that lets you share and change it legally. If you want free software
firmware that runs on gta02 you can take a look at osmocombb.

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Re: First small steps toward free GSM firmware

[Norayr Chilingarian]

>then flash into your GTA0x GSM modem

Wait, it works both on gta-02 and gta-04?

Also, did you test if data connection works? I don't use phone calls,
only encrypted ssl over tcp over 3g/wifi.

I am very interested if this can be flashed to gta-02 device,
(unfortunately I don't own gta-04). Also, is there is a possibility to
change IMEI during flashing?

Sorry if my questions are a little bit off topic. Anyway I am very
interested in free fw for my devices - OM gta-02 and n900.

10/13/13 06:08 -ում, Michael Spacefalcon-ը գրել է:
> Hello Om community,
>
> I am very pleased to announce that after many years of searching, I
> have finally found a copy of TI's firmware deliverable package for
> their Leonardo development board, i.e., for their Calypso/Iota/Rita
> chipset reference platform.  It is the package which TI must have
> given to all of their chipset customers including Nokia, Motorola,
> Compal, FIC/Openmoko, LG, BenQ and many others, and which was used by
> all of these companies as the starting point for making their unique
> proprietary firmwares.  This Leonardo firmware source can be found
> here:
>
> ftp://ftp.ifctf.org/pub/GSM/TI_src/Sotovik/
>
> It is a source with some object blobs unfortunately (but that was
> expected), but it is complete in that one can build a functional fw
> image from the included sources and object libraries.  This original
> code will NOT run on a GTA0x modem; it runs on the Leonardo board
> instead.  If you are curious as to what the Leonardo board looks
> like, you can see a picture of it on page 10 of this TI document:
>
> ftp://ftp.ifctf.org/pub/GSM/Calypso/chipsets+refdesigns.pdf
>
> However, I have known for a long time that Om's GSM modem is actually
> very close to the Leonardo board in terms of how the Calypso/Iota/RF
> chip interconnections are wired.  (I already knew this fact ~2y ago
> when I first saw the doc/calypso-signals.txt file in the OsmocomBB git
> tree - read that text file and judge for yourselves.)  The implication
> from this hardware similarity is that it should be quite easy to take
> firmware code that runs on the Leonardo board and port it to run on
> the GTA0x modem instead.
>
> I have just proven the above hypothesis by producing a leo2moko port,
> i.e., a port from Leonardo to moko.  You can find the Wine-buildable
> source here:
>
> ftp://ftp.ifctf.org/pub/GSM/FreeCalypso/
>
> You can build that source under Wine (see instructions in the README
> file inside the tarball) and produce an S-record image which you can
> then flash into your GTA0x GSM modem with fc-loadtool - the latter is
> my free replacement for TI's proprietary FLUID.
>
> My own limited experiments indicate that this firmware is able to dial
> voice calls (makes the other party's phone ring), receive voice calls
> (I dial the number of the test SIM card in my GTA02 and see RING
> messages appearing in the AT command channel), and even make CSD
> (circuit-switched data) calls successfully - being the outlaw that I
> am, I take great joy in playing with CSD (which I plan on using for
> encrypted voice further down the road) and thereby showing my middle
> finger to the NSA etc.  However, I have NOT fully tested the "normal"
> voice call operation: I have only verified that the fw places and
> answers these calls, but I haven't tested the actual voice audio.  The
> latter omission exists because I have very poor understanding of the
> Linux-based software that needs to run on the GTA0x AP, and on my test
> GTA02 I run a very minimal buildroot environment on the AP.  I have
> not yet figured out how to configure the AP-controlled audio system to
> pass the voice path between the GSM modem and the physical earpiece
> and mic, hence my current inability to test this voice path.
>
> Therefore, I encourage other community members to play with this
> firmware and see if it actually works end-to-end for voice calls.
>
> Viva la Revolucion,
> SF
>
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