Database Users

Really Hacking mobile devices

Who can tell me what the "hackable footprint" of a "networked" WM5 device is ?
What I mean is, what ports or services are running on a networked device that I can send commands to ?
Back in the old days with windows, a fresh installed computer had about 12 ports open which enabled a variety of hack attacks.
Using S.O.T.I pocket controller (enterprise) I can see many services running. However, a portscan shows no listeners (quite normal, as there prolly ain't no IIS , SMTP or NETBIOS service running.
The question remains, what's the hackable footprint ? Where should I start to look to hack my way into a networked device ? Has it ever been attempted ?
I did find some usefull stuff here : http://www.phrack.org/phrack/63/p63-0x06_Hacking_WindowsCE.txt
I'm talking about my own device here, not someone elses. Hope I won't be banned for asking this kind of stuff.... I'm just curious.

There's another Phrack article/presentation that goes into more detail on general hacking of WM devices, linking to the post you posted. They don't discuss much network hacking, but day-to-day, there are other ways into the Windows Mobile devices...
V

Coders new to WM5 "help" (advice)

Hi,
I have a fair background in various coding languages, and there are a couple of programs I want to try and build.
However, while I can usually pick up and understand a language quite easily the problem I usually find is a lack of knowledge of the objects available to make life easier and the functions which are available.
So far, I've sat around and got a setup which I think should allow me to write and compile WM5 applications and today plugins, but I have suddenly found I am missing that "thing" that made writing in other languages easier - effectively a "Cheat Sheet".
What I would appreciate from the other coders with experience in writing software for WM5 is a list of what windows or books you have open for reference when coding. Is it just MSDN, is there a specific page that you have bookmarked or do you just google for it every time?
Any further advice (like good compilers I might have missed) will also be greatly appreciated.
Thanks in advance.

I'd like to hear from others too about this..
So far, My buddies for development help have been:
1. Search in MSDN
2. Search in Google
3. Ask on xda-developers
4. Search in MSDN forums and usenet groups for pocket pc developers
5. A book (that i dont refer to too often) whose name goes smthing like "Programming for Microsoft Windows CE .net" by Douglas Boling (Its not for .net development, it covers native development mostly. Windows CE .Net refers to a version of CE)
6. I also have another book that i have not even opened till now. It is solely for .net development (which is not my forte). Its by Wrox Publishers. If I remember the name correctly, it goes smthing like "Professional Microsoft Smartphone Programming"

There is an exellent documentation on .NET & Native Code on MSDN.
Then there are samples as well, again on MSDN.
For a today plugin, there is a very good sample by levenum which u can easily find in this section of the forum.
For me its always been google & this forum, no boooooks !!!

or
www.codeguru.com
in most cases programming for pocketpc's is like programming for pc's

Thanks for the replies guys. I see what you mean, MSDN is rather good. I was beginning to think it was just WM6, but I eventually found the section on WM5 (which I am planning on coding for given my phone is WM5). Their Wiki also had some good info on it too. Don't know whether these will be my coding buddies yet though....
shantzg001 said:
I'd like to hear from others too about this..
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm glad someone else is interested. TBH I am surprised there is not a sticky at the top of the forum with this information in or a link to the Wiki for further details, but I could only find details of Development Tools on the wiki.
shaileshashar said:
For a today plugin, there is a very good sample by levenum which u can easily find in this section of the forum.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for this pointer. I found two (here and here) which look promising. Don't know if there are any I missed....

Just a small tip when searching in MSDN... add ce in the search pharse. For e.g., "ce WM_TIMER" will give you the CE related sessions at the top.

I like www.pocketpcdn.com - articles and code examples for Pocket PC and Smartphones arranged by categories.
Also www.codeproject.com has been helpfull at times.

Development resources?

I'm a c# dev wanting to start developing for my phone (kaiser)
Wondered if you guys could point me in the right direction ..
would love any links to development resource websites?
would love to do something with my touchscreen

Google,
MSDN,
etc,
etc....

Rhapsody said:
Google,
MSDN,
etc,
etc....
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
thanks
theres a lot of crap out there and i was kind of hoping for more useful response than that

Hi cameronm,
I'm not a great PPC developer but I found that there were three things that helped me get started. First if you're a C# developer you have to understand how where the entry point of your program is and how to instansiate and start a new form.
- Microsoft.Net Mobile development Handbook (2007)
- MSDN has hundreds of PPC development examples....it may take you a little while to get to know your way around but it is really valuable.
- Developing for Smartphones (2007)
sorry I couldn't find the authors. I started beginning of November with absolutely no C# or PPC or VS2005 experience....only what I learned from TAFE with C++ and Java being my strong points.
Here's what I've learnt from those resources above.
Write a custom SMS program.
Create a custom call initiate program.
Create a custom email program.
Pocket Outlook Contacts managment
Picture resizing
Basic Animation
Splash Screens
Custom buttons with my images
Multiple form applications
Player for Embed Shockwave swf files
Recursive directory searching
Reading and Writing to files
Creating fullscreen applications
The list goes on....
Google the above and see how you go...
Regards,
Slither2006.

cameronm said:
thanks
theres a lot of crap out there and i was kind of hoping for more useful response than that
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Therefore I gave you this response. A developer can find the needed resources by searching. There are plenty of usefull resources out there.
Putting your question over here, sitting back and relax while waiting for an answer is not really the way to go, I think.
I don't say that you do this, but your post did not say anything else to me.
http://forums.microsoft.com , http://www.msdn.com

Rhapsody said:
Therefore I gave you this response. A developer can find the needed resources by searching. There are plenty of usefull resources out there.
Putting your question over here, sitting back and relax while waiting for an answer is not really the way to go, I think.
http://forums.microsoft.com , http://www.msdn.com
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
i was merely asking a forum of developers what they considered to be decent resources for wm development .. on a dev and hacking forum .. seemed like a resonable question

cameronm said:
i was merely asking a forum of developers what they considered to be decent resources for wm development .. on a dev and hacking forum .. seemed like a resonable question
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If I look at your first post, I'm not very convinced.
But anyway; I'd like to visit the forums of MSDN: http://forums.microsoft.com
It has a special section for developing for devices.

Rhapsody said:
If I look at your first post, I'm not very convinced.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
We you oviously read more (or possibly less) into it than i intended.
i'm fully aware of the microsoft site ... i was more interested in places like codeproject etc but more geared towards pocket pc development where i can pick up examples, tips and read white papers on developing for the pocket pc ..
i just assumed that this would be an ideal place to ask ... i may well have been mistaken!!

most of the coding is general and c++ and c# code can be reused on pocketpc's
www.codeguru.com have some toturials i've linked to before about pocketpc today screen coding and the likes

Rudegar said:
most of the coding is general and c++ and c# code can be reused on pocketpc's
www.codeguru.com have some toturials i've linked to before about pocketpc today screen coding and the likes
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
thanks i'll take a look there

Please help, info about using java on wm with c# & googlemaps api

Hi first I must apologize for posting here I know I should post in the questions and answers section, I have already done this twice with two similar posts but I have not received a reply I beleive because the expert programmers are less likely to look there to help people as most questions are about useing software not developing it. anyway here is what i posting before I really hope someone can help me...
Hello everyone I was wondering if anyone could answer this question for me.
I am creating a wm app and for part of it i want some information from googlemaps, the maps api is in java and i was thinking of ways to incorperate this into my app. Can i create a java program to get data from google and have my c# program run the java program and get info from it? I could write my program totally in java but i don't like the way i have to first start the vm and launch my program from that is there a way to automate this? also I need quite a lot of information from the phone so using c# will make getting this info easier.
or are there any other ways i might be able to get the info I want, I don't really know anything about applets but could they somehow be used?
oh btw the specific data i want is distance between to map locations (via googles route not direct)
many thanks i hope someone can help
I apologize again for posting in here but this app is for a final year project and I need to know if im barking up the wrong tree as soon as possible.

I might be wrong here, but to the best of my knowledge, Google Maps API is actually JavaScript API, not Java. If you found Java API, it's most likely a wrapper. And if it exists, I'm sure C# wrapper should exist as well. You might want to take a look at this. I know it's not exactly what you are looking for, but it might be helpful to some degree. Also, one other thing I can suggest, is to look at Virtual Earth API. I'm almost 100% positive, that they do have a C# implementation of the API.

Hi hobbbbit thanks so much for your reply, so googlemaps api is javascript , I have never used javascript before and saw that the api used objects methods and looked like java so i just assumed thats what it was. If there isn't a wrapper for c# do you (or anyone) know of a way of using the api to obtain one of the objects and use it in c#?
I would use virtual earth but unless I am totally wrong here I thought to use it you needed a licence which costs around $8000 which I don't want to pay for. Even with google if I wanted to release the app i think I would have to pay although I have contacted them and they say I can develop my app using the free api.
**EDIT**
Ok well I took another look at virtual earth, I really am a complete idiot. I signed up for a FREE developers account so hopefully everything I need I can get from there.
again thanks for your advice if you hadent posted I would probably still be trying different ways to hack google earth to work in my wm app.

On codeplex is a windows forms project that uses googlemaps api as wel as a few others. Im pretty sure you can get an idea of how to go about this from there

cornelha said:
On codeplex is a windows forms project that uses googlemaps api as wel as a few others. Im pretty sure you can get an idea of how to go about this from there
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Superb this was just the thing I was looking for I will be sure to study this code closely. Thanks so much for the information.

[Q] Homebrew and the Dell Venue Pro

I searched and got nothing in the forum about homebrew, so i figured i'd ask about it. Is it possible for us with this phone to do any of the homebrew stuff out there? I have been without my laptop so cannot really try anything yet, but I see articles about little apps and aesthetic changes people are doing to their Samsung and HTC wp7 phones and i want in on it too.
I loved that homebrew community when i had my Palm Pre back in the day and had it hacked to my liking. I really hope we can do this with our phones too. I have looked into it a little but, but i don't think the guys who have done the unlocking and developing for wp7 have used, tried or have access to our phone. I really hope I'm wrong and just haven't had any luck searching for answers, but so far i haven't really found anything specifically stating whether anything works on the DVP yet.
If they have, could someone point me in the right direction and i'll continue learning on my own? If not, then i hope we can some day.
Thanks for any help y'all can provide.

I'm looking to attack this problem from the other end. I'm the developer of one of those "little apps" you mentioned; specifically the one that lets you change the Search function in IE (when you hit the Search button or mis-type a URL).
I'm working with a homebrew library that more-or-less handles HTC, Samsung, and LG, but completely doesn't support Dell. I'd like to get it working with Dell so that
A) You all can use my app
B) More homebrew apps can be written for the DVP
Some questions that I have (answers to any are appreciated):
How can I programmatically identify a Dell phone? (On an HTC, you can check for HKLM\Software\HTC in the registry.)
Does anybody have ProvisionXML working on the Venue Pro yet? (This is a really handy way to make changes to the OS.)
Does anybody have a way to get access to the file system, even read-only, on the Venue Pro?
Thanks a bunch. In the meantime (and possibly helpful to this cause) there's a homebrew project called "Functional Webserver" in the WP7 Hacking forum. It should work on Dell phones (I think) and means you should have at least Socket (networking) APIs. It also gives (read-only) access to the \Windows directory, which may be very useful for getting other stuff...

GoodDayToDie said:
I'm looking to attack this problem from the other end. I'm the developer of one of those "little apps" you mentioned; specifically the one that lets you change the Search function in IE (when you hit the Search button or mis-type a URL).
I'm working with a homebrew library that more-or-less handles HTC, Samsung, and LG, but completely doesn't support Dell. I'd like to get it working with Dell so that
A) You all can use my app
B) More homebrew apps can be written for the DVP
Some questions that I have (answers to any are appreciated):
How can I programmatically identify a Dell phone? (On an HTC, you can check for HKLM\Software\HTC in the registry.)
Does anybody have ProvisionXML working on the Venue Pro yet? (This is a really handy way to make changes to the OS.)
Does anybody have a way to get access to the file system, even read-only, on the Venue Pro?
Thanks a bunch. In the meantime (and possibly helpful to this cause) there's a homebrew project called "Functional Webserver" in the WP7 Hacking forum. It should work on Dell phones (I think) and means you should have at least Socket (networking) APIs. It also gives (read-only) access to the \Windows directory, which may be very useful for getting other stuff...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I would like to submit my services to help you get that information... However, I'm not really sure how to get that to you. If you'd be happy to lay out directions so I can get you that information, I'll happily do it on my Dell Venue Pro.
Thanks for the help!

@nabiscuit Thanks for the offer. The first step is making sure your phone is developer-unlocked, so you can side-load (install directly, not from Marketplace) XAP application packages. All homebrew apps are distributed in this way. The official way to do this is to have a Microsoft developer account (http://create.msdn.com/) although for the next few weeks ChevronWP7 should also work.
For the first question, try installing a Registry Viewer or Registry Editor app - there are a number of them available, both on this site and on TouchXperience (I like the TouchXperience one a lot). Go poke around for anything that looks like a distinctive registry key or value. The most likely place is under HKLM. You could also just do a registry search (the better apps have at least some capability for such searches) for "Dell" as *anything* with that string is probably distinctive.
For the second, it will take access to native code. Using the "Functional Webserver" app you can download some file from the phone's /Windows directory. Checking them for useful COM exports would be helpful, although I'm not the person to ask about doing that - I can do NT drivers and I can do managed code, but COM is not my thing. Try asking for help with this in the general Windows Phone 7 Development and Hacking forum (http://forum.xda-developers.com/forumdisplay.php?f=606).
For the third question, I could actually whip up a small app that *might* work already. You could also try Advanced Explorer (XDA) or TouchXplorer (TouchXperience) although I don't think either is guaranteed to work outside of HTC phones. If you're willing to try running an app that will check for read and write in a number of harmless parts of the file system, I can code one up for you to run and report results back.
Thanks again!

I'd love to get some homebrew development going, is there anything I can do to help?

Try getting in touch with notebookgrail (http://forum.xda-developers.com/member.php?u=3174632) as he seems to be pulling apart the DVP native libraries and finding lots of cool stuff to do with their COM interfaces. I don't know if he has registry write yet - one of the core functions that a lot of homebrew apps want - but if so I can work on getting it integrated into a nice cross-device library for writing apps which (should... grrr Samsung) work on any phone.

GoodDayToDie said:
Try getting in touch with jessej (http://forum.xda-developers.com/member.php?u=3220709) as he seems to be pulling apart the DVP native libraries and finding lots of cool stuff to do with their COM interfaces. I don't know if he has registry write yet - one of the core functions that a lot of homebrew apps want - but if so I can work on getting it integrated into a nice cross-device library for writing apps which (should... grrr Samsung) work on any phone.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Did u mean to point it to me as i was the one who did pull apart the native libs.?
If not, sorry for the intrusion.

Yes, send your request to notebookgrail. I am not on his level for development purposes. But I do appreciate the comment.

Whoops, sorry about that notebookgrail! I must have looked at a response instead of the OP by accident. I've fixed my post above. Thanks a bunch for the work you've done. Any word on registry writing?

any progress?