who here misses Winamp?
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The Wrew
@Wrewdison@masto.hackers.town
mastodon 4.7.3Mad Scientist responsible for Wrewtopia Labs.
Hacker focused on electronics and RF hacking, and the occasional web application.
Parent. Trying not to suck at it.
Creator of Veilamp, VoidMantisOS for the hackers.town pager (fork of hacker pager, respect to exploitee.rs), WrewOS, and Spectra Mesh.
Old enough to be nostalgic for the sounds of a dialup modem.
Most posts self destruct after 2 weeks.
833 Followers
128 Following
50 Posts
Joined April 12, 2025
Wrewtopia:
Portfolio:
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XMPP:
thewrew@chat.hackers.town
The @veilamp@masto.hackers.town open beta has arrived, and the website is now active! If you've been wanting to give it a try... now's your chance!
Download links are on the website.
https://veilamp.com/
#veilamp #hacktheplanet
About to meet up with a @tek@freeradical.zone in the wild… I’m not sure the universe can handle so much awesome in one place, but we’re doin it anyway!
Pretty sure some pizza is gonna get slaughtered.
I was wearing my hacker jacket in downtown SF the other day while hanging out with the new work crew walking back to the office from lunch, and as I'm crossing the street I hear "Hack the planet?! YEAH! Hack the planet!" and realized someone had seen the hack the planet patch on my jacket ... so arm raised I shouted "HACK THE PLANET!" and someone else also did the same (no idea who, they were across the street).
Hell yeah, HACK THE PLANET!
It's official! #Lamplighter is now released!
The SpectraMesh website has been updated, the git repo has been marked public, and the sensor firmware is up on the web flasher (and confirmed working).
Learn more here: https://spectramesh.net/lamplighter
A little peek at my new gig….
Yep… I’m getting paid for this. Amazing.
Some updates are coming to #Lamplighter this week.
I've added channel state information (CSI) to the data captured about wifi devices, which can help with fingerprinting the radio itself and help reduce duplicates due to mac randomization.
The second is an active directed probe request function, where if you see an access point listed without an identifying SSID the probe request *might* convince that AP to tell you it's SSID. This one is experimental.
#hacktheplanet
Adding mermaid support into my markdown notes editor (amber dome) was one of the best things I could do - it really renders things like block and sequence diagrams well and makes my notes look so much better.
I also added an export to PDF feature which preserves the rendered diagrams and stuff, so I can write in markdown, create rich diagrams, and when done export it all into a PDF to distribute (should I need to, which I did this week).
What do you call a dog who does magic?
A labracadabrador!
What do you call a boomerang that won’t come back?
A stick.
I haven’t had much time for side projects this week due to work (which is LIKE working on a side project, except it pays!) - but I did make some tweaks to active probing and fingerprinting on the surveillance detection server. Specifically because of trackers like the AirTag that periodically rotate their hardware address, making it hard to actually determine how many are around you.
Active fingerprints query the devices themselves and get the serial number, a much better fingerprint.
Two satellite dishes got married and I was invited.
The ceremony was pretty meh, but the reception was out of this world!
What’s big and grey and doesn’t matter?
An irrelephant.
If this past week is any indication, some good and cool stuff is coming.
Especially if you’re tired of enshitification, and you value privacy.
I, for one, can’t wait!
Latest PCB design project is starting to look like I might be summoning digital demons…
But in reality is a direction finding setup utilizing ESP32-S2’s (using a shared crystal to keep them in sync) as the discrete radios and antennas, and an ESP32-S3 Wroom-1 N16R8 as the “brain”.
They’re set up in a UCA geometry sized to be able to DF on 2.4ghz range targets.
RE: https://mastodon.social/@VeroniqueB99/116857755926130975
I’ve said it plenty of times before, and I’ll continue to say it until my dying breath… health insurance is a scam, designed to part you from your money while doing as much as possible to avoid paying for anything. It is not there for your benefit, and only wants to keep you alive so you can keep paying. When you get too old or your diagnosis is too expensive they’ll fuck you over even harder because you’re no longer valuable to them.
The first messages on #SpectraMesh from the ThinkNode M1 have been sent and received!
There's more work to do on the firmware, but it boots and can send/receive messages, which is most of the battle.
I may call it a night here and relax - the rest can happen tomorrow.
Over lunch today I was able to address the firmware issue in #SpectraMesh - and released the firmware for the T-LoRa Pager (finally!)
If you want to check out the release notes, they're here: https://spectramesh.net/updates (click "changelog" to see)
If you want to flash the firmware, it's available on the web flasher: https://spectra.wrewtopia.com
Rounding out the week by getting video streaming working on my cyberdeck. Test run is watching the matrix streamed from my media server.
Have this on while I work on a voice link between WrewOS devices.
I bet I could pick it…
The T-Lora Pager is so tiny and cute - I kinda love it!
An opportunity to work for a great dude, at a fun company…
If this is in your wheelhouse you should jump at this opportunity before it’s too late.
Ya know, if you want to send and receive messages on a radio.... it's usually a good idea to make sure the radio is properly configured to talk on the frequency you're trying to use.
Or, you know, so I've heard.
oops.
The #SpectraMesh git repo has been migrated over to Codeberg (link below). This will allow others to contribute to it - should they so choose - and hopefully it will go somewhere.
The existing repo on hackers.town forge will no longer be maintained.
New repo is here: https://codeberg.org/thewrew/spectra-mesh
you want a seriously righteous hack, you score one of those @thegibson@masto.hackers.town
Spectra v0.3.0 has been released!
Partial changelog:
- New architecture allows for headless mode with ability to attach TUI session
- Fix for meshtastic secondary channel support
- MacOS support w/pre-compiled binary for Apple Silicon
- Improved error logging
- install script w/support for Linux (amd64 and arm64) and MacOS (Apple Silicon) - auto-detects architecture and installs correct binary.
Can get it here: https://forge.hackers.town/Wrewdison/Spectra
I releases the GUI companion and Android APK for #SpectraMesh - both can be found on the releases page of the git repository linked here. I also updated the firmware bins on the web flasher to the latest stable firmware with BLE support.
I’ll be moving the git repo over to codeberg later this week to allow others to contribute.
I also got a Lilygo T-Beam that arrived today - I’ll start working on porting the firmware to support it.
Exciting day!
Feeling a little irreverent right now, so spending a little time wiring up a few easter eggs into Spectra.
I miss easter eggs in software - it's so easy to add and almost universally brings some joy. It should be a thing more often than it is. I will be adding easter eggs to all of my projects going forward.
I may have to revisit my passive radar project soon. I want to see if I can get it to work before I head back to work in a couple of weeks.
Maybe later this week I can look at it again.
What‘s a bird watcher‘s favorite type of math?
Owlgebra.
#spectra v0.4.0 has been released! Last rapid fire release - I promise!
Partial changelog:
1. Support for stock MeshCore USB Companion firmware (not BLE... yet)
2. Manage radio channel settings from Spectra with new commands
3. Log level now set to info, and flag added to set log location
4. Install script fixed - will now reliably pull latest version (oooops).
More details and full changelog here: https://forge.hackers.town/Wrewdison/Spectra/releases
What do you call a magician who's lost his magic?
Ian.
What did you do today that was super cool?
For me, it was [REDACTED]…..
The next person to follow me will be follower 666!
I'm not sure why but this amuses me so much.
Spectra v0.4.0 development underway - the big feature of this release will be support for the stock MeshCore USB Companion firmware that is available on their web flasher.
This will make it a lot more approachable for those who want to use MeshCore, as all you have to do is plug the radio in and load up spectra and you're off and running.
I've got the implementation done, so now it's just a matter of testing while I add some other small features and bug fixes.
Spectra v0.3.0 is looking really solid right now. I may end up pushing a release of it later today at this rate.
Changes so far:
- Added --daemon mode flag which will launch as a backgrounded daemon.
- Added --attach flag to attach a TUI session to a running daemon (without having to kill the daemon first)
- MacOS support!
- Improved error handling and logging
- Installation script w/upgrade handling
Theres some smaller things in there too, but these are the big ones
It's Monday - let's find reasons to smile, find joy in the little things, and make this week the best we can in the face of an increasingly insane world.
I've got some chores to do around the house this week, but also will work on getting Spectra v0.3.0 ready for launch. I've already found some bugs that will be squashed - but even with those it's looking really good.
Go forth, and #hacktheplanet
Replying to
@socketwench@masto.hackers.town exactly. I love my rss feeds. Unlike a lot of tech they just… work.
Replying to
@chillybot@infosec.exchange plus we all know planes have two pilots so having an odd number is just... odd.
Looking for anyone who wants to help test #Spectra with me.
Ping me here and we'll get something set up.
MeshCore or Meshtastic - either works!
I stayed up all night wondering where the sun went.
Then it dawned on me.
Replying to
@bosh@infosec.exchange the hackers.town badge can be flashed with SpectraMesh firmware via the web flasher(xiao esp32) and then yes, but the badge will require use of a companion app.
Replying to
@datakrash @ocean this is why I only search when I know I’m going to buy.
I don’t trust a single fucking one of those companies.
My dog, Minton, ate a shuttlecock last night.
Bad, Minton.
Replying to
@bosh@infosec.exchange oooh, the new badge!
WrewOS doesn’t include Veilid, but Spectra Bridge does (which bridges MeshCore, Meshtastic, and SpectraMesh over veilid).
I got veilid to run on the esp32, but it’s just not performant enough to be a fullly functioning node.
What do you call a warm, sunny, beautiful day that comes after two or more rainy, dreary, days?
Monday.
Damn, Mongolia is a beautiful country…
My lunch view for today was great (photo included). Tomorrow is a national park and turtle rock, then we head to another part of the country to visit nomadic reindeer herders… and after that, the Gobi.