Over on YouTube a video titled “Hunting Rogue WiFi Devices using the HackRF SDR” has been uploaded. The talk is given by Mike Davis at the OWASP (Open Web Application Security Project) Cape Town. The talk’s abstract reads:
Rogue WiFi Access Points are a serious security risk for today’s connected society. Devices such as the Hak5 Pineapple, ESP8266-based ‘throwies’, or someone with the right WiFi card and software can be used to intercept users’ traffic and grab all of their credentials. Finding these rogue devices is a very difficult thing to achieve without specialised equipment. In this talk Mike will discuss the work he has been doing over the past year, to use the HackRF SDR as a RF Direction-finding device, with the goal of hunting down various malicious RF devices, including car remote jammers.
The talk starts off with the basics, explaining what the problems with WiFi devices are, what the HackRF and SDR is, and then goes on to explain some direction finding methods that Mike has been using.
Hunting rogue WiFi devices using the HackRF SDR - Part 1 of 2
Hunting rogue WiFi devices using the HackRF SDR - Part 2 of 2
Thanks to Albrecht Lohofener for submitting to us his new software package called ‘welle.io’ which is a free DAB and DAB+ decoder and player that supports the RTL-SDR (directly or also via rtl_tcp) and Airspy software defined radios. The software can be run on both Windows and Linux, and also supports Raspberry Pi 2/3 and cheap Chinese Windows 10 tablets.
Albrecht writes that his software is a fork of the qt-dab codebase, with the development goal being to create an easy to use DAB/DAB+ software receiver. The software is still under heavy development, and Albrecht mentions that he is looking for fellow developers and testers to help improve the software and report any bugs. Albrecht writes:
I’m proud to introduce a new open source DAB/DAB+ reception application welle.io https://www.welle.io. welle.io is a fork of qt-dab http://github.com/JvanKatwijk/qt-dab (old dab-rpi and sdr-j-dab) with the goal to develop an easy to use DAB/DAB+ reception application. It supports high DPI and touch displays and it runs even on cheap computers like Raspberry Pi 2/3 and 100€ China Windows 10 tablets. As input devices welle.io supports rtlsdr and airspy.
Currently daily Windows binary builds are available over on the projects GitHub. For Linux and Raspberry Pi users you’ll need to compile the code from source, but in the future he plans to provide Ubuntu snaps.
We gave the welle.io software a brief test and it ran as expected. There is an automatic channel scan feature which scans through all the possible DAB channels and an advanced mode for seeing technical information such as the frequency, SNR and error rates. The software also has a nice touchscreen friendly GUI which automatically downloads and displays the DAB/DAB+ program guide information.
Welle.io DAB/DAB+ decoder for the RTL-SDR and Airspy.
UnoSDR is a simple, modern, intuitive interface, small and fast PC-based DSP application for Software Defined Radio (SDR). It’s written in C++ and Qt Quick cross-platform framework. Typical applications are Shortwave listening, Ham Radio, Radio Astronomy and Spectrum analysis.
UnoSDR supports both the RTL-SDR and soundcard based SDRs. With the RTL-SDR UnoSDR must be run via an rtl_tcp server. The software is for the Windows platform, but it seems that there is also an Android version, although this may not yet support the RTL-SDR as we could not get it to connect to our rtl_tcp server.
We tested the Windows version and it ran well despite a few glitches with trying to get the software to connect. There is also a bit of a delay when tuning due to the use of rtl_tcp, and the delays that using a network stream entail even when connected to the localhost. Also we only saw support for AM, USB, LSB and WFM modes. The other modes may be added later as the software still appears to be in development.
The Tekmanoid EGC STD-C decoder was recently updated and a new commercial paid version was released. The paid version now supports the decoding of LES STD-C messages. Previously the only other decoder that we knew of which was able to decode LES messages was the www.inmarsatdecoder.com software. The inmarsatdecoder.com software costs €100, and while the price for the Tekamanoid decoder is not advertised, it is less than €100, and a bit more affordable for the average person.
Tekmanoid STD-C Decoder Receiving LES Message.
The free versions of both decoders only decode the EGC broadcast messages which contain SafetyNET messages. These include messages like weather reports, shipping lane activity and hazards such as submarine cables and oil rig movements, pirate activity, refugee ship reports, missing ship reports, and military exercise warnings.
The paid version can decode the other non-broadcast private LES STD-C channels. LES STD-C channels typically contain email like messages sent to and from ships. Mostly it’s company messages about the ship route plans, cargo discussions, repair/fault discussions, ship performance information and weather reports etc. Sometimes small files are also downloaded. Each Inmarsat satellite contains about 7 LES channels each run by a different telecommunications company, so one may be of interest to you.
The paid version of the Tekmanoid decoder also has a nice feature for visualizing the SafetyNET EGC messages. Every now and then an alert containing coordinates and an area is sent out. Usually it is something like a distress alert from an EPIRB or the search area for a missing vessel. The decoder generates an HTML file that displays these areas on a map, alongside the text message.
STD-C EGC Distress Alert on map
The author of the Tekamnoid software allowed us to test his new paid version for free. We ran the software using signal from an Outernet patch antenna and LNA. An RTL-SDR V3 + SDR# was used as the receiver, and the audio was piped to the Tekmanoid decoder with VB-Cable. Decoding was almost flawless on both LES and EGC STD-C channels. In a previous recent update the Tekmanoid decoder was updated for improved decoding performance, and now in our opinion it is almost or just as good as the inmarsatdecoder.com software.
If you are interested in learning more about decoding Inmarsat STD-C we have a tutorial available here. LES channels for the Inmarsat satellite in operation over your geographic location can be found on UHF-Satcom’s website.
LES STD-C Inmarsat Channels
Remember that LES STD-C messages are not publicly broadcast, so in some countries it may not be legal to receive them. Most countries will have a law that says you can receive and decode the data, but you may not act upon or use to your advantage any information from the messages.
The new software requires a different DVB-T driver app to be installed first, which is also provided by Martin. This is because the RTL-SDR needs to be operated in a mode different to the way that the SDR drivers use it in. Martin has also open sourced his Android DVB-T driver and it is available on GitHub.
Aerial TV is currently free on the Google Play store, but looks like it may eventually have some in-app purchases. Also, it is currently marked as ‘Unreleased’ on Google Play, which is essentially a beta version, so you might expect there to be some bugs.
Aerial TV Screenshot
Over on YouTube user GiamMa-based researchers SDR R&D IoT has uploaded a video showing Aerial TV scanning for TV channels, and then eventually playing some video.
APP DVB Receiver Aerial TV (Unreleased) rtl sdr compatible test with oneplus one
A few weeks ago the HackRF drivers and firmware were updated and one new feature added was hackrf_sweep. This new feature allows us to scan across the spectrum at up to 8 GHz per second, which means that a full 0 – 6 GHz scan can complete in under a second.
We gave the software a test and it ran flawlessly with our HackRF. The features include:
Optimized for only one purpose – to use HackRF as a spectrum analyzer
All changes in settings restart hackrf_sweep automatically
Easy retuning
hackrf_sweep integrated as a shared library
Peak display
High resolution waterfall plot
Remember that to run the software you will need to have updated your HackRF to the latest firmware. The spectrum analyzer software is also Java based, so you’ll need to have the Java JRE for Windows x64 installed.
Over on YouTube use radiosification has uploaded a video showing the Windows TETRA decoder ‘wintelive’ in action. Wintelive is a Windows port of the popular RTL-SDR compatible Linux based ‘telive’ TETRA decoder. Back in October 2016 we posted about its release and we have a tutorial for telive and the RTL-SDR available here.
Recently a reader of RTL-SDR.com wrote in and submitted a link to T——–o SDR, which is an RTL-SDR compatible multimode SDR decoder program for Windows. (The website is in Italian but is easily translated with Google Translate). In terms of operation it appears to be quite similar to SDR#, and other programs like SDR-Console and HDSDR.
Like all other general purpose receiver software it is capable of decoding NFM/AM/WFM/SSB/CW modes. It also has digital noise reduction built in as well as an S-Meter and frequency manager list.
Update: Unfortunately we have been informed by the developer of SDR# that this software was illegally decompiled from a relatively new SDR# version and is thus stolen work. We looked further into the software and it is essentially an exact clone of SDR#, just with a different skin. Please do not use this software, and respect software legality.
Essentially it appears that they took the closed source SDR# program, decompiled it then reskinned it and then made it open source under a new name.
Obviously this is unacceptable behavior, so out of respect for the original SDR# developers hard work we’ve removed links and references to this software on our website.
