Hak5

Hosted by Darren Kitchen and Shannon Morse. New episodes Tuesdays.

Put together by a band of IT ninjas, security professionals and hardcore gamers, Hak5 isn't your typical tech show. We take on hacking in the old-school sense, covering everything from network security, open source and forensics, to DIY modding and the homebrew scene. Then we wrap it all up with a... Read More

Rooting the Droid, Zipit Doom and USB Live Chrome OS

Tuesday, December 15th, 2009 – running time 44:29

Hacking the Motorola Droid: Root Access! A Linux Doom source port on the Zipit, Booting and installing Chrome OS from USB, your Wordpress picks and much more.

A Linux Doom Source Port

It was only a matter of time before we put Doom on The Zipit Z2. The recently unlocked linux-based wireless device is a prime candidate for fragging, what with it's QVGA color display, WiFi and all. After unlocking, installing Doom is simply a matter or launching Fluxbox with startx and downloading PrBoom, a cross-platform Doom Source Port, with apt-get install prboom. The trick in launching PrBoom from /usr/games/ is to add the -width 320 -height 240 parameters. While PrBoom comes included with Freedoom, a free and open source Doom compatible IWAD, you may provide your own doom or Doom2-iwad parameter.
It is also worth noting that PrBoom comes with it's own
tcp game server for deathmatch. If anyone wants to try a little Zipit Z2 deathmatching hit us up. Or if you're looking for some Doom goodness on the PC check out my favorite port, Skulltag.

11:07 | Play

Boot Chromium OS from USB

While still early in it's development stages, Google's upcoming Chrome OS is a neat OS to play with -- especially on a netbook. While the Virtual Machine images floating around are nice for a glimpse, if you really want to immerse yourself in the Chrome OS experience it's best to boot it from the metal. This can be achieved by "burning" this Chromium OS image to 3GB or greater USB or SD media. Here's a torrent.
If you're familiar with dd it's simply a matter of downloading the torrent, unzipping and imaging the included chrome_os.img to your media. For example, dd if='chrome_os.img' of=/dev/sdb where /dev/sdb is the path of your removable media.
If you're in Windows you'll be delighted to find that the linked zip contains a copy of WinDD, as well as writing instructions. More information can be found at this makeuseof.com article. Important tidbits include the fact that the default user and password are chronos / password and that a terminal can be accessed by CTRL+ALT+T. Oh, and the xrandr command is available if your desired resolution isn't detected automatically. The syntax is typically xrandr -s 1024x768 or similar.

20:25 | Play

Hacking the Motorola Droid: Root Access!

As expected the Motorola Droid has been rooted. That is to say there's a hack that'll unlock SU, or super user privileges on the phone. The hack is essentially su bundled in an unsigned update that can be run from the SD card. The unlocking process, which has changed since introduction, is outlined at this AllDroid.org forum thread.

At time of writing the process is to download this zip, rename it to update.zip and copy it to the root of your Droid's SD card. Shutdown the Droid and start it by holding Power and X. Once greeted by an exclamation point on your screen hold the camera and volume+ buttons. From the menu choose the update.zip with the D-Pad, and once updated choose reboot.

Keep in mind that when it comes to unlocking moving targets like this it's best to check with droid forums beforehand.

28:16 | Play

Connect with Hak5

About the Show

Details
Show Title:
Hak5
Description:
Hak5 isn't your typical tech show. It's hacking in the old-school sense, covering everything from network security, open source and forensics to DIY modding and the homebrew scene. Damn the warranties, it's time to Trust your Technolust.
Categories:
How-To & DIY, Technology & Gadgets
Launch Date:
Sep 7, 2008
Episodes:
Credits