Internet of Stuff(-it Marketing Fluff)

I've attended a lot of Internet of Things (IoT) talks and webinars lately as it's one of the tech buzz words you'll need to know in 2015. While this is an emerging concept to the discussion as of late, the term itself has been around since 1999 and has been defined, redefined, coopted and usurped by many a vendor to flog their old product with new marketing material.

When it comes to technology marketing, I need three things:

1. Vision - sweeping future statement (optionally includes rainbows and unicorns)
2. Definition - what does the technology do
3. Architecture - how does it do it

When any of the above are not well-defined, vendor slide decks start to look like Swiss cheese.

The Adventures of Rich and Vince

Characters courtesy of SP Studio

Changing MAC Address on Windows

In testing wireless across a conference center, I do a few different things.

1. Scanning tools like Vistumbler (laptop) and Wifi Analyzer (Android phone) to discover access points
2. Throughput testing with Speedtest
3. Connecting the wireless card on the laptop to the network to force splash screen authentication

The last part is challenging as after the first connection, repeated disconnects and reconnects will provide the same IP address through DHCP and bypass the splash screen. This is because most systems cache MAC addresses so repeated authentication isn't required for the duration of the lease.

Changing MAC addresses will present as a new device and thus a new IP address is issued and authentication via the splash screen is required. But how to easily change a MAC address in Windows?

Thankfully, it can be done. Unfortunately, it's a bit of obsured registry hacking that does it.

Enter MACChanger.bat. This Windows batch file uses 'reg', 'wmic' and 'netsh' to query the registry and set the appropriate keys to change the MAC address of the specified adapter. It's pretty easy, but does require Administrator privileges.

If you set the wireless network to automatically connect, then a simple:

C:\> macchanger.bat "Wireless Network Connection" -r

Changes the MAC address to a random value and reconnects to the network.

MACChanger.bat can be found on my Software page.

Netcat Proxy on Windows: Part 2 - v4/v6 Translation

In my previous post I looked at a Netcat proxy on Windows using named pipes to emulate how it works on *nix. Now that I got it working in the straightforward case, I decided to see if Netcat could be used as an IPv4 / IPv6 translation proxy.

This of course requires a Netcat that has IPv6 capabilities and because of my setup - works on Windows. Luckily, I have just the thing - nc64 which you can grab here.

The setup is more or less the same as for the IPv4-only test case last discussed: start the named pipe server, start the Netcat proxy, then connect. However, in this case, the Netcat proxy setup is slightly different. We'll need to listen on IPv4 and forward to IPv6 and vice versa for the opposite test case. Let's look at IPv4 to IPv6 first.

Netcat Proxy on Windows: Part 1 - Named Pipes

Using Netcat as a proxy has been well documented and is pretty straightforward on *nix:

&gt mkfifo backpipe
&gt nc -l 3000 0&ltbackpipe | nc www.google.com 80 1&gtbackpipe

However, I'm running Windows and the concept of named pipes (mkfifo) is a bit different. There isn't a Windows command to create a named pipe; rather, it must be programmatically done. Also, it operates a bit different so even with a Windows named pipe, the above command didn't work for me.

There are workarounds, using the '-e' option but I couldn't get those to send data back to me. So I figured it was time to find out how named pipes work and see what I could do with that.

Defeating Lollipop Longing with KitKat Kustomizations

Even with a third-party ROM, I won't be getting Lollipop on my long-in-the-tooth Samsung Galaxy S3. It runs fine, doesn't give me any real troubles, gets app updates from the Play Store - just no operating system updates.

And of course, that's the issue.

Some of the new features of Lollipop - most notably notifications and smart lock - are missing from KitKat (4.4.2 is what my GS3 is running). And I need them!

Developers to the rescue!

Notifications

For notifications, I looked at a few options and first settled on Heads-up notifications. It was easy to set-up and use, offered a clean and smooth user interface and did what I wanted - mostly. It didn't offer multiple notifications, only the latest one. Feature requests were made but it seems the developer doesn't want that in this app. From the open-source repository:

"I ran a poll on my website a while ago, where over 1,000 users voted. Roughly 50% of the users wanted support for multiple notifications. [...] (this option should probably be implemented in a separate app as it kills the whole point of non-intrusive notifications)."

Since "Android app developer" isn't on my resume and my limited programming chops couldn't make heads or tails of the open source code, I needed to find something else.

Enter Floatify. This app does the same but allows for multiple notifications. However, you'll need the ProKey ($2.49) to enable all features. I sprung for it and am pretty happy so far.

Smart Lock

Like notifications, I looked at a few options and settled on Dislock. This allowed me to set up my home WiFi network as a trusted location and disable the lockscreen while at home. I previously used the pattern unlock but this app (and most others of this kind to be fair) only supports PIN and password mode. So I had to switch and get used of using PIN to unlock; not a big deal.

This app too has a paid-for mode ($2.99) with an in-app purchase to allow more than one trusted "device". Since I've set up my home WiFi, I can't set up my Bluetooth headset or car Bluetooth also without the purchase. For now, skipping the lockscreen at home is fine.

Another note is that when this app installs and activates, it changes the default lockscreen security to "None" when on the trusted network. This means pressing any button on my phone (power or home) activates the home screen. This can lead to accidental app opening or other issues since there isn't the intermediate swipe to get to the home screen. I tried setting the default lockscreen security to "Swipe" and it WORKED! Now, at home, pressing a button activates the swipe to unlock screen (no security). And when I'm away, PIN to unlock appears to maintain security in untrusted locations. Works a treat!

Reach the Beach Relay - 2014

Massakruliks - Mens Open

234/521 - 34/46

Back row from left: Paul (leg 12), Dave (leg 9), Randy (leg 2), Gavin (leg 8), Erin (leg 3), Jackie (leg 6), Jim "Wiggy" (leg 11)

Middle row from left: Steve (leg 1), Ali (leg 10), Jen (leg 4), Leon (leg 7)

Front row: Vince [aka: Me] (leg 5)

			Vert
	Distance	Difficulty	Gain	Loss	Net	Flair	Time	Pace
Leg 5	5.5	Easy	73	388	-315	+11	37:25	6:48
Leg 17	9.1	Hard	773	739	34	+22	1:09:50	7:40
Leg 27 *	8.57	Hard	471	530	-60	+11	1:08:44	8:00
	23.17					+44	2:55:59	7:36

* Due to an injury in our van, some switching happened and I volunteered for the longest of the last set of legs.