RCA / Thomson Modem Hack Discovered

Posted by Hemos on Monday December 27, 2004 @03:49AM from the the-joy-of-hacking dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Those un-employed modem hackers are at it again. The group known as TCNiSO has released a very interesting hardware modification for RCA / Thomson cable modems. The modification is done by grounding the bus clock on the serial EEPROM which throws the device into a diagnostic panic mode. Then by using the debug tools from the embedded console to reprogram the EEPROM, a user can permanently enable a developers menu which gives complete control of the modem, such as modifying the hardware addresses or flashing new firmware. Now if only these guys can figure out how to enable the Bluetooth features on my v710 phone..."

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Note the date.. by Anonymous Coward · 2004-12-27 03:55 · Score: 5, Informative

..of the securityfocus story. It says "Feb 5 2004". It's nearly a year old!
Re:Don't fuck around w/your modem's MAC. by garcia · 2004-12-27 04:08 · Score: 4, Informative

So? You can do that w/o a hardware hack using a TFTP server and a text editor. Most cable ISPs already scan their networks for modified cable modem config files and disable them for ToS violations.
Motorola V710 phone hack here by scattol · 2004-12-27 05:03 · Score: 4, Informative

There are instructions on this web site on how to modify your v710 phone to turn on all the bluetooth functionality. You need to register though. Don't know if they work, I haven't tried them so you are on your own.

If they work, let us know.