Subject: RE: [E3-hacking] Making life easy for you

From: Cliff Lawson <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 17 Jun 2005 10:28:13 +0100

Fair enough but shortly the job of recycling our subsidised hardware is due
to get a bit trickier for you I hope.(Assuming we've implemented SHA256
hashing and MD5+RSA signing correctly ;-) 
 
This isn't an attempt to break the "fun" that you guys have been having but
realistically, if some Eastern European (for example) outfit decided to use
the "backdoor" technology you've come up with to then buy up 10,000 of our
phones at £50 and then recycle the electronics into some completely new
product with their own software or even continue to use the h/w for their
own telephony then we'd make a HUGE loss. We can't afford to run that risk
so have to protect our investment in the per unit subsidy. It's not the fact
that 5 or 10 talented engineers in the UK have managed to "break in" -
that's no real problem for us - good luck to you and your ingenuity, you got
£100+ worth of electronics for £50. In fact we owe you thanks for
highlighting our security shortcomings - I'd be interested if anyone can
"break in" to newly protected hardware (OK, desoldering the NOR doesn't
count! ;-)
 
I know this sounds a bit heavy handed but otherwise it turns into Alan's
famous "Apprentice" quote of "selling £10 notes for a fiver a time" and
Amstrad as a relatively small company, just cannot afford to do that.
 
Cliff
-----Original Message-----
From: Gavin Andrews [mailto:[email-masked]]
Sent: 16 June 2005 22:51
To: [email-masked]
Subject: [E3-hacking] Making life easy for you

The reason I am interested in E3 hardware recycling is that the hardware is
good value.
 
It makes no sense to be to buy something at a reasonable price!  It's the
subsidy that makes the E3 make sense!
 
Just being realistic.
 
Regards,
Gavin

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---

From: [email-masked]
Date: Fri, 17 Jun 2005 10:27:53 +0100

> hashing and MD5+RSA signing correctly ;-) 

I'm surprised you didn't do it to start with. At the moment anyone can
use your freephone numbers to send SMSs, download games, check mail,
etc. Seems like you haven't done much on the security front yet.
What are you going to do with your legacy E2 and E3s though?

Paul

---

From: Jasmine Strong <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 17 Jun 2005 10:41:26 +0100

Hi Cliff,

On 17 Jun 2005, at 10:28, Cliff Lawson wrote:

> (OK, desoldering the NOR doesn't count! ;-)

What about using JTAG?

-J.

---

From: David Given <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 17 Jun 2005 11:10:16 +0100

> hashing and MD5+RSA signing correctly ;-)

Sounds like I should go and buy an E3 quick!

One of the things I like about playing with my E2, apart from the sheer fun of 
making something do something it was never designed for, is the fact that 
it's a really nicely designed piece of equipment. It feels solid and 
well-built, and has a very nice form factor. If you can produce an unlocked 
but unsubsidised version, then good luck to you; I hope you sell a 
bucketload. I'd certainly recommend them to people who want a small, powerful 
ARM box.

(Incidentally, depending on how your security system works, you may be able to 
sell one model of the hardware and then sell a seperate unlock code. 
Downloading the code would disable the encrypted boot process and wipe the 
flash. That way you might be able to save costs by only needing one 
production line.)

(You should also be aware that some people are going to take any encrypted 
boot sequence as a challenge; look no further than the incredible lengths 
some people went to to crack the XBox. However, I doubt any approach that 
requires hardware modification will achieve enough volume to worry you.)

(Also incidentally, I own a NC200. It's a lovely piece of hardware. I'm trying 
to hack that, too --- I have my own code booting from the SRAM card, but I 
haven't deciphered the floppy disk boot code yet...)

-- 
+- David Given --McQ-+ "I smell a rat; I see him forming in the air &
|  [email-masked]    | darkening the sky; but I'll nip him in the bud."
| ([email-masked]) | --- Sir Boyle Roche
+- www.cowlark.com --+

---

From: Peter Riocreux <[email-masked]>
Date: 17 Jun 2005 11:35:39 +0100

> hashing and MD5+RSA signing correctly ;-) 

If that is your plan (and I have no beef with it - you are perfectly
entitled to try to protect your investment just as we are perfectly
entitled to try to evade it :-)) then it would be good to continue to
have the modem part of the new hacker board populated. My intention
was to use one as a means to interface a VoIP system to a POTS line
for non-VoIP calls IYSWIM - so that I could merge incoming POTS calls
with the VoIP system and/or manage my own VoIP-or-POTS decision
making.

> This isn't an attempt to break the "fun" that you guys have been having 

For a few sick, twisted individuals it will make it more fun ....

> but realistically, if some Eastern European (for example) outfit
> decided to use the "backdoor" technology you've come up with to then
> buy up 10,000 of our phones at £50 and then recycle the electronics
> into some completely new product with their own software or even
> continue to use the h/w for their own telephony then we'd make a
> HUGE loss. We can't afford to run that risk so have to protect our
> investment in the per unit subsidy. 

Why not offer it at a higher price that makes a profit *on the unit*
and had no hardware-hacker-defeating mechanism? You could even do that
now with the E3 and make it flashable with an image from the SD card
or a USB memory stick or somesuch. And thinking along those lines, it
has no need of the larger of the two sets of flash on board if it has
the SD card socket - it can boot from the small flash bootloader and
then take its image from the SD card. I don't believe it would be
cannibalising your own market as I think it would be a completely
separate market. It may of course be that if you remove the subsidy it
becomes more expensive than something that could be assembled at home,
but the fanless, single boardedn-ess of it is attractive.

Peter

---

From: [email-masked]
Date: Sat, 18 Jun 2005 09:36:05 +0100

Round like a circle in a spiral, like a wheel within a wheel
Never ending or beginning on a never ending reel
Like a snowball down a mountain or a carnival balloon
Like a carousel that's turning running rings around the moon
Like a clock whose hands are sweeping past the minutes of its face
And the world is like an apple whirling silently in space
Like the circles that you find in the windmills of your mind.
 - "Windmills of your mind", Bergman & Legrand

"The real beginning of home computing all started with the ZX Spectrum.
Introduced by Sir Clive Sinclair in 1982, it proved to be a huge hit in the
home.

The machine was small, smaller than any laptop available today. It plugged into
a standard television set and used a standard tape recorder for storage. It was
equipped with 48K of ram which was plenty for what it needed to do. A 5.25" disk
drive was available for those that needed it (programmers and the like). It was
a machine tailored for home use."
- Alt-Tab: A Brief History of the Sinclair Spectrum
http://www.alt-tab.net/games/zx-spectrum/history/

"It'd basically be a box (maybe
pressed steel or something) with an E3 board at the heart (maybe with modem
section depopulated) and the LCD/backlight module fitted into the "roof" - a
trailing cable would go to the PS/2 QWERTY as found on the E3. So it'd just
look like a generic little computer in a box - nothing like a telephone. I
think we probably would put a JTAG header on it for those interested in such
things (though maybe this isn't such a necessity now that Linux is ported)"
- Cliff Lawson

<delurk/>

Do you see what I see?

Sinclair produced a computer built from parts. No amazing powerhouse, no magic
abilities. Just a little box that a kid could buy and put together, and
discover the magic of computers.

So I see before us the possibility of another little box, "smaller than any
laptop available today", "a machine tailored for home use". Perhaps this time
with another great British entrepreneur's company name printed on it. Make it
simple, provide decent documentation and a little spiral bound manual. Make it
available to kids, to affordable computing initiatives, and perhaps Mr Sugar
could capture far more than he expected.

"For 10 years the ZX Spectrum was a mainstream computer. Nothing before or since
has matched it. Just think how obsolete the Pentium III will be in 10 years
time. The spectrum was incredibly well designed and it is the amazing British
design which put it in good stead for an entire decade. No computing machine
could match that today."

Phil H

---

From: Jasmine Strong <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 18 Jun 2005 10:32:39 +0100

On 18 Jun 2005, at 09:36, [email-masked] wrote:

> . A 5.25" disk
> drive was available for those that needed it (programmers and the 
> like).

Nobody used 5.25" discs on a Spectrum;  lots of people had Microdrives.

Has anyone noticed how CompactFlash cards look like Microdrive carts?

-J.,
humming Hey Hey 16k...

---

From: David Given <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 19 Jun 2005 20:54:30 +0100

On Saturday 18 June 2005 10:32, Jasmine Strong wrote:
[...]
> Nobody used 5.25" discs on a Spectrum;  lots of people had Microdrives.

I used to use a QL. I know about microdrives; let's not go there. Even in 
jest.

[...]
> humming Hey Hey 16k...

I've allocated more space for a single icon's bitmap than most old 8-bitters 
had RAM, let along video RAM. Sigh. I think all programmers these days should 
be required to start out on a 1kB ZX81 (or, if you want to go upmarket, a 3kB 
Jupiter Ace), just to get the right attitude towards space and efficiency.

(I gather we have a friend in common...)

-- 
"Curses! Foiled by the chilled dairy treats of righteousness!" --- Earthworm 
Jim (evil)

---

From: Jasmine Strong <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 19 Jun 2005 20:58:59 +0100

On 19 Jun 2005, at 20:54, David Given wrote:
> I used to use a QL.

Nah, you *tried* to use a QL.

>  I know about microdrives; let's not go there. Even in
> jest.

CompactFlash, though...  that's just lovely.

> had RAM, let along video RAM.

Hey, I spent most of May writing a faster memcpy() for OMAP processors.
(Specifically, OMAP16xx, since that has an ARM926EJ in it.)

> Sigh. I think all programmers these days should
> be required to start out on a 1kB ZX81

...or a new Amstrad hobbyist machine, maybe?

My first computer was a CPC6128.  Lovely, it was.

> (I gather we have a friend in common...)

Indeed so.  Have you not fled that sinking ship yet?  Even the rats are 
going
hungry, I hear.

-J.

---

From: David Given <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 19 Jun 2005 21:38:09 +0100

> Nah, you *tried* to use a QL.

Ah, I see you know them.

[...]
> Hey, I spent most of May writing a faster memcpy() for OMAP processors.

Hmm. An exciting life, eh?

[...]
> ...or a new Amstrad hobbyist machine, maybe?

The problem with the E3 is that it's *too* powerful; the temptation to port a 
real OS like Linux on it is far too great. If you go that route, eventually 
you start complaining because Firefox runs badly on it, which means you've 
missed the point.

The smaller 8-bitters were so crippled that you had to resort to clever tricks 
to get them to do anything at all... which means you end up having to learn 
the clever tricks, which stands you in good stead if, say, you have to spend 
a month writing memcpy().

Plus, it teaches you that you can write a usable word processor that runs in 
4kB. 

> My first computer was a CPC6128.  Lovely, it was.

I was posh. I had a (borrowed) BBC Micro.

[...]
> Indeed so.  Have you not fled that sinking ship yet?  Even the rats are

No, no, I can say with some certainty that there are no rats left. Not even at 
the very back of the freezer.

---

From: [email-masked]
Date: Tue, 21 Jun 2005 14:07:41 +0100

I'm going to be quite annoying and reply to myself...

> could capture far more than he expected.

It seems we are reminiscing somewhat. I will join you, if only to illustrate my
point.

I remember programming in those daft languages where you felt clever using four
gotos in seven lines, cleverly creating a logic tree that would defeat anyone
who tried to understand it. I remember the excitement of controlling stuff with
this little box just by typing commands (or sometimes hitting the right
combination of keys to create a command - thanks Sinclair).

The most magic thing was the simplicity though. When you have a decent interface
to the equipment, and more importantly its i/o, the thing comes alive.

So here's my thought on producing a dev-friendly/child-friendly box. Choose a
language - something of the python/ruby ilk - and build a set of scripts for
it, which can control the entire i/o of the box. From flashing lights to
keyboard, smartcard reader to disk access. If it's all there, and all easy to
use, people will write for it. And if they're script based, there will be no
open/closed source question. I don't mean prevent people using it as a linux
box, just provide an easy and uniform interface for people new to it all to
program in. Oh, and give them a manual...

So what thinkest? 

Phil

---

From: [email-masked]
Date: Tue, 21 Jun 2005 14:08:11 +0100 (BST)

On Tue, 21 Jun 2005, [email-masked] wrote:

> it, which can control the entire i/o of the box.

Clearly Brandy BASIC is the answer to this.  BBC BASIC is the ultimate in 
kid-friendly, awesome languages.

-J.