Peek Read Info (Posts about hacking)

Removing 3g modem from a Kindle Paperwhite 2

Dugite-Code — Tue, 19 Jan 2021 16:00:00 GMT

Do I need the cloud connectivity on my kindle everywhere I go? Probably not.

A few years ago I received an old Kindle 3g Paperwhite 2 (2013) 6th from my mother. She wasn't a fan of the screen and decided she preferred a full tablet for reading while I quickly fell in love with the e-ink screen. However my use-case involves mainly e-novels/websites I scrape and upload via Calibre. Given how privacy conscious I have become, and how much of a power drain a 3g modem can be, I've basically had it in airplane mode since I received it.

But walking to my desktop to sync books when the device has wifi capability felt wasteful. Searches on the internet proved fruitless on ways to disable the 3g.

Modular hardware

While searching for a teardown video to determine what the internals even looked like I stumbled upon this video for an older kindle model where it was pointed out how modular Kindle hardware really is. After seeing the wifi paperwhite internals and seeing this video I felt it was likely they were still utilizing this modular design method (after all, if it works), so I cracked open my kindle following this ifixit guide.

Well that was simpler than it looked

Thankfully removing the 3g modem is a non-destructive process (apart from the glue when removing the bezel).

Is the 3g antenna - I didn't remove this.
Is the 3g modem - Held in by 4 screws and attached with a tiny connection plug.
Is simcard slot - Simply push the tray lid in the direction of the arrow to open.

Is the 3g antenna connector - This is a simple push connector. A firm pull up away from the board will disconnect this without damage. I used some tape to secure the wire for re-assembly
A loose metal washer, I secured this back in place with the screw I removed previously.
A loose metal washer, I secured this back in place with the screw I removed previously.

Re-assembly

This was simply a matter of re-placing the board, screws and lightly clamping the bezel back in place. The glue on the bezel was, thankfully, still sticky enough to re-attach without any issue. As the bezel has no mechanical stresses on it I don't see this ever being and issue.

My next steps

My next steps where to jailbreak/root my kindle to install a couple of useful tools (i.e. a firewall). I plan to go over this in detail along with my remote book managment solution in another post so Stay tuned.

Fixing a Patreon feed's cover artwork

Dugite-Code — Wed, 18 Sep 2019 16:00:00 GMT

With the recent Pocketcast PR blunder I finally decided to jump back to open source Antennapod. This has been painless especially with the introduction of the Remove silence feature, the main feature that kept me with Pocketcasts for so long.

The only issue I had was a Private feed with broken cover artwork, this was frustrating but it looks to be an issue on Patreons end. Thankfully Node Red is available to rescue the situation!

The flow is really simple, the only additional node I have added is the node-red-contrib-httpauth.

On a HTTP request, fetch the RSS feed.
Convert from XML to and Object.
Replace msg.payload.rss.channel[0].image[0].url[0] with a good url from the podcasters website.
Create the txt/xml headers
Return the fixed RSS Feed

[{"id":"8d2a4ad1.4599a","type":"http request","z":"d437ad18.0999c","name":"","method":"GET","ret":"txt","paytoqs":false,"url":"https://www.patreon.com/rss/yaddayada","tls":"","proxy":"","authType":"","x":367.5,"y":31,"wires":[["4c5cdedd.6772c8"]]},{"id":"4c5cdedd.6772c8","type":"xml","z":"d437ad18.0999c","name":"XML To Object","property":"payload","attr":"","chr":"","x":230.5,"y":78,"wires":[["adbd8c2e.7fbcd"]]},{"id":"7475a34e.9f953c","type":"http in","z":"d437ad18.0999c","name":"rss","url":"/mystupidRSS","method":"get","upload":false,"swaggerDoc":"","x":69.5,"y":31,"wires":[["26c3aede.f41d4a"]]},{"id":"26c3aede.f41d4a","type":"node-red-contrib-httpauth","z":"d437ad18.0999c","name":"","file":"","cred":"","authType":"Basic","realm":"","username":"","password":"","hashed":false,"x":213.5,"y":31,"wires":[["8d2a4ad1.4599a"]]},{"id":"56731f49.b7f77","type":"xml","z":"d437ad18.0999c","name":"Object to XML","property":"payload","attr":"","chr":"","x":647.5,"y":79,"wires":[["5aa22446.612044"]]},{"id":"5aa22446.612044","type":"change","z":"d437ad18.0999c","name":"Set Headers","rules":[{"t":"set","p":"headers","pt":"msg","to":"{}","tot":"json"},{"t":"set","p":"headers.content-type","pt":"msg","to":"text/xml","tot":"str"}],"action":"","property":"","from":"","to":"","reg":false,"x":219,"y":131,"wires":[["8df07127.e9d0c8"]]},{"id":"8df07127.e9d0c8","type":"http response","z":"d437ad18.0999c","name":"","statusCode":"","headers":{},"x":391,"y":131,"wires":[]},{"id":"adbd8c2e.7fbcd","type":"change","z":"d437ad18.0999c","name":"Replace Cover Image","rules":[{"t":"set","p":"payload.rss.channel[0].image[0].url[0]","pt":"msg","to":"https://example.com/cover_art.png","tot":"str"}],"action":"","property":"","from":"","to":"","reg":false,"x":440.5,"y":79,"wires":[["56731f49.b7f77"]]}]

Something neat I did with FitNotes and Tasker

Dugite-Code — Mon, 22 Jul 2019 05:00:00 GMT

I use the fitness tracking app FitNotes on Android. It's a great application that I have happily used for years. The greatest issue I had with it was manually entering my body weight. Well I finally got myself into gear and fixed that issue using the fantastic staple of Android automation, Tasker

Using a Xiaomi Mi Smart Scale that I hooked up to my home server using my python gatttool wrapper I Dump it's weight data into a Google spreadsheet.

Using my Simple API (Because Google's own API is a pain) and the helper task getformatteddate, I pull a unix timestamp and the weight onto my Phone. I then run a INSERT SQL command on FitNote's database (using root of course)

I also did a bulk body weight record import via .csv using sqlitebrowser. Now I no longer have to manually enter my body weight, should have done this years ago.

Here is my Tasker task if you are interested:

    Healthapi (44)
        A1: Flash [ Text:%date %time Long:Off ]
        A2: Flash [ Text:Updating Health Report Long:Off ]
        A3: HTTP Get [ Server:Port:https://script.google.com Path:/macros/s/myprivatesheet/exec Attributes:key=myapikey Cookies: User Agent: Timeout:20 Mime Type: Output File: Trust Any Certificate:Off ]
        A4: Variable Set [ Name:%data To:%HTTPD Recurse Variables:Off Do Maths:Off Append:Off ]
        A5: Variable Set [ Name:%newline To:
     Recurse Variables:Off Do Maths:Off Append:Off ]
        A6: Variable Split [ Name:%data Splitter:%newline Delete Base:Off ]
        A7: Variable Split [ Name:%data1 Splitter:, Delete Base:Off ]
        A8: Read File [ File:Tasker/lastdate.dat To Var:%lastdate Continue Task After Error:On ]
        A9: If [ %lastdate neq %data11 ]
        A10: Write File [ File:Tasker/lastdate.dat Text:%data11 Append:Off Add Newline:Off ]
        A11: Perform Task [ Name:getFormattedDate Priority:%priority Parameter 1 (%par1):%data11 Parameter 2 (%par2):yyyy-mm-dd Return Value Variable:%date Stop:Off ]
        A12: Perform Task [ Name:getFormattedDate Priority:%priority Parameter 1 (%par1):%data11 Parameter 2 (%par2):hh:nn:ss Return Value Variable:%time Stop:Off ]
        A13: Variable Set [ Name:%measurement_id To:1 Do Maths:Off Append:On ]
        A14: Variable Set [ Name:%value To:%data12 Do Maths:Off Append:On ]
        A15: Variable Set [ Name:%query To:INSERT INTO MeasurementRecord (measurement_id, date, time, value, comment) VALUES ("%measurement_id", "%date", "%time", "%value",""); Do Maths:Off Append:Off ]
        A16: SQL Query [ Mode:Raw File:/data/data/com.github.jamesgay.fitnotes/databases/database.db Table: Columns: Query:%query Selection Parameters: Order By: Output Column Divider: Variable Array:%test Use Root:On ]

I hope you found this interesting, if only in the abstract "hey that's a thing you can totally do" kind of way. If you want me to write a complete how-to let me know in the comments down below.