Samsung Galaxy S2: My First Android Experience

Nope guys, this is not another Samsung Galaxy S2 (hereinafter referred to as SGS2) review. But I'm writing this post to share the experience of me migrating to another smartphone platform, an open yet fragmented platform known as Android (the cute, little green robot)

My journey into the smartphone has always been a simple but an interesting one. It started off with me having a feature phone that only support text messaging and call. Then in December 2008, there was a huge leap in which I was given an iPhone 3GS. The cultural shock was so great; from a feature phone to one of the most powerful (at that time) and robust smartphone OS in the world. For weeks, I learnt from scratch to utilize all the features that 3GS offered, and at the end of my transitional period, 3GS actually replaced my netbook and pc as my main device to connect to the internet.

The iPhone 3GS was my best buddy, trying its best to fulfill my quest hunting for perfection in every sense, and to my surprise it has succeeded in every way I could remember as a little smartphone device, where even men fail to even think about their duty of care.

Armed with a 600Mhz ARM Cortex A8 processor, accompanied by PowerVR SGX 535 and 256MB of RAM, it was fast, the user interface was smooth and the experience surpassed even that of a full fledged PC. But its heyday has long ended, so I planned for its replacement and drafted the requirement for the next smartphone, which are as follows;

1) Must be more capable than what 3GS has to offer

2) Latest hardware that can stand for another 2 years

3) Open and customizable

4) Future proof

There you have it, i was given the SGS2 as a replacement for 3GS. The first day i began using Android could be described as awkward. I was trying my best to adapt the feeling of openness where I could decide how Android and SGS2 would behave. Its very different from the straightforward, limited iOS on the 3GS (albeit not being inferior). The 1st week of using SGS2 was more towards porting all features of iOS into Android, which pretty much a headache and the steep learning curve slowed me down. 

The second week was more towards adapting to Android. I've picked up on how to customize my homescreen, apps folders, widgets and some core options in Android. I've began to install several apps from the market either straight from SGS2 or through the PC (cool feature). SGS2 performed galantly particularly due to its muscular 1.2Ghz dual core ARM Cortex A9, coupled with PowerVR SGX 540 and humongous 1GB of RAM. The UI is silky smooth due to full hardware acceleration that Samsung has provided in its TouchWiz UI, something that is absent on many Android devices. 

Week 3 which is the week I'm writing this post, I can say that I've mastered the BASIC things in Android. There are more to come actually, as SGS2 has not been stressed tested yet.  All I can say up until now SGS2 is a worthy replacement. A little advice from me is that, don't treat an Android device like you treat an iOS device. They are both good in their own way so you have to accept the weaknesses of the platform of your choice, which I'm applying in my real life as well. 

WHAT I LIKE...

• The open, plenty of customization, and lots of options and settings
• Silky smooth hardware accelerated Samsung's Touchwiz UI
• 1.2Ghz dual core prowess with lots of RAM
• Live wallpapers (although i dont use them)
• Large Super AMOLED Plus screen, vibrant and detail
• The camera with flash!!

WHAT I DON'T LIKE

• Flimsy, slow and laggy Android market
• Some crapwares that come together with Touchwiz and cannot be removed
• Samsung Kies (iTunes like software)
• el cheapo home button 
• The sound quality of SGS2 is inferior compared to my iPod Nano and 3GS (I can tell the difference)

Cracking MAC Address Filtering Protected WiFi

This is a continuance of WiFi hacking guide, for the first guide which involved cracking WEP protected WiFi can be viewed here

MAC Address

MAC stands for Media Access Control, in which Wikipedia defines it as "a unique identifier assigned to network interfaces for communications on the physical network segment." Further read on MAC Address topic shows that each networking device has a unique MAC Address, hard-coded in the device's hardware possibly during chip assembly.

MAC Address Filtering

Most modern WiFi routers support MAC filtering function, and can be used in collaboration with packet encryption ie. WEP & WPA cipher for added security (presumably). The underlying idea of MAC address filteration is that, if the packet encryption has been breached and deciphered, MAC address filter will kick in and block connection to 'rogue' wireless adapter. It is some sort of Identification Friend or Foe (IFF) in radar concept. The WiFi router will be registered with a list of MAC address of 'friendly' WiFi adapters and only connection from this registered adapters will be accepted even if you have the password for the WiFi connection. Sounds unbreakable isn't it? Well not really.

Cracking the MAC Address Filtering

The problem with MAC address is that it is broadcasted freely over the air when 'friendly' WiFi adapters is connected with the router. Anyone with compatible hardware and packet capturing software (airodump) can obtain the MAC address of connected device

Supposedly, MAC address should be unique to every networking device, however the software to change the MAC address is freely available and can be done in mere seconds. In other words, you can change your WiFi adapter's MAC address similar to that of the registered device's MAC address

MAC Address Filtering attack works around the 2 flaws as discussed above, (1) sniffing the connected "friendly" MAC address and (2) applying the MAC address to 'rogue' adapter and is detected as registered device.

Disclaimer: The author does not condone hacking or similar act in anyway whatsoever. This post is intended for educational purpose and to create awareness for a better and stronger wireless security. The practice done by the author was made on the author's own network infrastructure

Tools Needed:
1) Backtrack OS 5 (guide)
2) Compatible wifi adapter with airodump (I use Atheros AR5007EG)
3) MAC changer software, some adapters support MAC Address change in Windows, which will be discussed later
4) Patience, of course
(I strongly recommend you to read the WEP cracking guide posted earlier for detailed tutorial on how to enter monitor mode for your wifi etc..)


1) Preparing the Wifi Adapter in monitor mode using airmon-ng - airmon-ng start wlan0

2) Start capturing packets of available access points airodump-ng 
    - airodump-ng mon0

3) Capturing packets of target WiFi access points
    - airodump-ng -w wep(if any) -c (channel number) --bssid (bssid number) mon0

4) Copying registered MAC Address

5) Applying registered MAC Address

the Windows 7 driver for atheros AR5007EG fully supports MAC address change, known as network address. If you happen to have the same function, just type the MAC address without the ":". Look for the setting in device manager.


After that, just click ok and try to connect to the access point. Fill in the password for WEP/WPA if there's any.


Troubleshoot

• If the access point is encrypted with wep/wpa, you need to crack that first before changing the MAC address
• If you cannot change MAC address within the device manager setting, try 3rd party software. Google is your best friend

How To: Improve your 3G Broadband Connection (Maxis, Celcom, etc.)

Expensive, poor coverage, low usage quota, erratic performance etc etc are some of the problems that broadband users in Malaysia are currently experiencing. The inception of 3G broadband connection does bring some hope (albeit a false one), allowing mobility factor to be driven into broadband service in Malaysia.

However, many 3G broadband users voiced out their dissatisfaction (including myself) in which the premium price they pay does not reflect the quality they expect from a supposedly 3G connection. Coupled with the fact that their connection seems to max out at the meager EDGE signal, though they are still paying at 3G rate, well something needs to be done.

Among the many problems faced by 3G broadband is the lack of 3G signal in certain area (apparently majority of the area lacked 3G coverage), consequently leading to slow speed, frequent disconnection, and high latency to servers. So what do we need to do?? Yup BOOST THE BLOODY SIGNAL!!!

INSTALLING OMNI-DIRECTIONAL ANTENNA
Most broadband users do not know that they can actually install an external gain antenna to improve signal reception. So check now whether you can add in an external antenna. My Maxis Huawei E1762 does have it (CRC9 connector)

TESTBED

Acer Aspire One D250

Intel Atom N280 processor 1.66 GHz 512KB L2 Cache 667 MHz FSB

2GB DDR2 667MHz SDRAM, 160GB harddrive

Maxis Broadband 3.6Mbps (Max) Huawei E1762 3G modem with TCLIP2 3G Antenna

Location: Somewhere in Ipoh. 3G Coverage: Pretty good

The Huawei E1762 alone can have a good coverage with full bar HSPA connection

TEST 2: SPEEDTEST AND LATENCY TEST (SPEEDTEST.NET)

 Huawei E1762 with TCLIP2 blasts through with download speed at 2.52Mbps and upload speed at 1.58Mbps. Latency is very low at 105ms. Pretty damn low for a wireless connection

 Eventhough E1762 alone has the same signal coverage as with the E1762 + TCLIP2, the speed and latency tests do not fare the same. Download speed appeares to be halved of that with antenna at 1.30Mbps and upload speed is nowhere near the TCLIP2 can achieve, averaging at 0;64Mbps. The latency also shows some regression when the antenna is removed, peaking at 127ms

To sum all up, the TCLIP2 3G Antenna can really improve speed and performance of your 3G broadband connection. Even if your area has good 3G reception, by adding the antenna can allow your connection to achieve better speed and lower latency. With the price at reasonable RM 68, it really is worth every penny you spent.