Rodney Fletcher’s Blog

Sometimes in life, you may be required to find out the reverse of an md5 hash. Actually, this isn’t really likely for any good reason but hell, I found a web page and wanted to show it to you.

http://md5.rednoize.com/ offers a Google like interface to reverse lookup known md5 hashes.

Of course, this only works on unsalted hashes and hashes for known words, so it’s completely useless against Linux / UNIX passwords or strong passwords. However NT doesn’t salt hashes (still, despite the fact that UNIX has been doing it for literally decades), so it may very well be useful as a password recovery tool, for sysadmins out there.

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I got myself one of those Nokia n95 phones – very cool, I must say. So I wanted to connect it to my home wi-fi setup, without modifying the setup. To do this, I needed to leave MAC filtering on. I know MAC filtering is quite weak and easy to break, so yes I use WPA2 as well but anyway, I found it a little tricky to find the MAC address on the n95.

I understand it’s printed under the battery but I’m too lazy to pull it out, so here’s how to find it on the n95, without turning it off.

Dial *#62209526# on your phone. You don’t need to hit the green phone button – it will just pop the MAC up straight away.

That’s it. This article was written on n95…

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EFTel has announced it will begin a rollout of VDSL2 capable hardware to at least 70 exchanges nationwide. This will make the fastest theoretical speed available to home users 100mbit, within the next few months.

Here’s the press release:

“EFTel’s MSANs can deliver VDSL2, ADSL2+, traditional ADSL, SHDSL corporate solutions, normal PSTN Voice services, IP Video, VoIP, and Bare DSL”, said the announcement. EFTel will use Huawei hardware, with backhaul provided by PIPE Networks. “Commencing in February 2008, the MSANs will be aggressively rolled out at a rate of 15 exchanges per month, with an initial schedule of 70 exchanges nationwide.”

You can read more here…

This is simply fantastic news!

Of course, there are a few catches: namely VDSL suffers from noise far more than ADSL, so you have to be even closer to an exchange – about 1.6km or 1 mile is the realistic limit, which is next to useless, in suburban Australia, unfortunately.

And Labor is still promising to “upgrade” us all to 12mbit. Fantastic.

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The ability to squeeze more out of your in-house copper cable just increased beyond what was thought possible.. again.

Dr John Papandriopoulos, from the University of Melbourne, has found an algorithm to achieve speeds in excess of 100mbit from existing ADSL, by significantly reducing electromagnetic interference on the line – the primary cause of data loss at high speed.

To top things off, the man most often accredited with inventing ADSL, Professor John Cioffi, has heard about the breakthrough and offered John a job – in Silicon Valley. John also won the University of Melbourne’s Chancellor’s Prize for Excellence this year.

Melbourne University’s commercial arm, Melbourne Ventures, is now seeking the highest bidder for the new technology.

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