
Reverse Engineering a Mysterious UDP Stream in My Hotel (2016) - SuperNinKenDo
https://gkbrk.com/2016/05/hotel-music/
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jessaustin
_What the hell? I can’t believe I spent time for this. It’s just elevator
music. It is played in the hotel corridors around the elevators. Oh well, at
least I can listen to it from my room now._

One would have thought the next step would have been to arrange for better
(i.e. more metal) elevator music? If it's multicast, it would be surprising if
there were a lot of authentication on the speaker side.

~~~
joewee
My thought exactly. Make voice recordings and randomly broadcast ghostly
screams into the elevators. Not something I would do, but definitely a DEFCON
prank waiting to happen.

~~~
pavel_lishin
"Attention customers, due to signal delays, this elevator is now running on
the express line. For local service, please transfer to the 1 train at the
168th street station."

~~~
netsharc
``Hello,'' said the elevator sweetly, ``I am to be your elevator for this trip
to the floor of your choice. I have been designed by the Sirius Cybernetics
Corporation to take you, the visitor to the Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy,
into these their offices. If you enjoy your ride, which will be swift and
pleasurable, then you may care to experience some of the other elevators which
have recently been installed in the offices of the Galactic tax department,
Boobiloo Baby Foods and the Sirian State Mental Hospital, where many ex-Sirius
Cybernetics Corporation executives will be delighted to welcome your visits,
sympathy, and happy tales of the outside world.''

``Yeah,'' said Zaphod, stepping into it, ``what else do you do besides talk?''

``I go up,'' said the elevator, ``or down.''

``Good,'' said Zaphod, ``We're going up.''

``Or down,'' the elevator reminded him.

``Yeah, OK, up please.''

There was a moment of silence.

``Down's very nice,'' suggested the elevator hopefully.

``Oh yeah?''

``Super.''

``Good,'' said Zaphod, ``Now will you take us up?''

``May I ask you,'' inquired the elevator in its sweetest, most reasonable
voice, ``if you've considered all the possibilities that down might offer
you?''

~~~
pitaj
Is there a reason you're using those god-awful ticks instead of normal
quotation marks?

~~~
aldanor
I guess you're supposed to render it as LaTeX in your head.

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thsowers
Previous discussion:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11744518](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11744518)

~~~
jessaustin
Haha, the best part was the multiple comments complaining about outdated magic
files seeing Nintendo everywhere.

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syntheticnature
One wonders if selecting "decode as RTP" in Wirehshark might've saved some
time figuring out the header situation. Though I thought that was 12 bytes,
not 8, offhand.

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pankajdoharey
This same guy written has a lolcat in 64 bit assembly.
[https://gkbrk.com/2016/07/lolcat-clone-
in-x64-assembly/](https://gkbrk.com/2016/07/lolcat-clone-in-x64-assembly/)

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mrguyorama
In the few times I've tried to follow a completely unknown protocol, I've
often failed to make the kind of leaps that this person was able to. To that
end, I often get stuck and unable to make progress. I really want to learn to
reverse engineer, but I feel like I don't innately know enough of the
patterns.

In the same vein, I often missed the patterns required to solve difficult
integration and derivatives in calculus. I believe I need more practice in
that regard. Anyone have recommendations for simple protocol reverse
engineering practice?

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kawsper
I love stories like these.

