
Using an old BlackBerry as a portable SSH or Telnet terminal - todsacerdoti
https://rqsall.com/posts/using-an-old-blackberry-as-a-portable-ssh-terminal
======
stragies
Whenever I contemplate putting an ancient device (back) on the air, I always
end up finding out, that at least one of the wireless technologies/chips
aboard the device has security problems, and replacement firmware ( _if_ the
problem is fixable by SW/FW) is usually not available, or from dodgy sources
with unknown "goodies" added. (In those cases, I also don't trust the soft-
toggle in the UI)

PostmarketOS is my current "Favorite" FW for hopefully getting some old
devices back into service, mostly for interfacing with some IOT installations.
They are working to get the Mainline kernel to run on many old(er) devices,
since these days only a correct DTB is required to boot on nearly anything.
(iiuec)

~~~
swiley
I’d be surprised if older blackberries had PMOS support. The OS they chipped
~with was based on QNX~, most of which isn’t open source.

Edit: TIL the original blackberry OS was a strange embedded java VM. (I’ve
never owned a blackberry)

~~~
malexw
The QNX-based OS started with BlackBerry 10 around 2013. Everything before
that was a Java VM on top of a relatively small OS written by the company.

~~~
jeffbee
Not everything before that. Before that Java stuff RIM was shipping a bespoke
platform with a C API, from 1996 to 2002. The devices had Intel 386 CPUs which
sounds weird but the battery life was incredible. The model 850 ran on 1 AA
battery. The model 957 was rechargeable but it ran so long you didn't need to
take the charger on trips.

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avery42
I think once the Pinephone's keyboard case is released, it could be a great
option for a device that you can buy brand new with active
development/support.

Also, for anyone having to use SSH on a more unreliable network, like
slow/spotty 3/4G, I highly recommend Mosh[0], it's been pretty much essential
for me.

It keeps the connection open even if the network drops, and automatically
reconnects when possible. Typing without lag is also nice (it even shows an
underline below text that hasn't yet reached the server), although you'll want
to use screen/tmux if you need scrollback.

The only annoyance I've had is that you need mosh installed on both ends, as
well as the same font encoding/locale (don't really know much about this).

[0]: [https://mosh.org/](https://mosh.org/)

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jasoneckert
While it's good to reuse older devices whenever possible, it really only makes
sense when those devices are able to run a modern operating system for
security reasons. For example, running a modern Linux distro on an older
laptop extends its useful life, but getting an ancient BlackBerry OS to ssh
into something across a legacy network connection just doesn't make sense to
me.

~~~
tomxor
I'm not seeing the problem with the legacy network, but there is a potential
security issue with needing DSA and 3DES for SSH - However others below have
mentioned it's probably not practical to implement attacks against those on
this device due to throughput limitations.

... in which case maybe it's all good?

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WrtCdEvrydy
I think it would be awesome to have a list of things you can do with old
devices.

For example, I'm using the original Nexus 7 as a MIDI interface (virtual
piano) for FL Studio even though it's a 2012 product.

~~~
gambiting
Perhaps that's not what you had in mind, but I still use daily a Late 2008
MacBook Pro without any issues. With some patching I've installed Catalina on
it so it will still receive security updates until.....2023 I think?

I just keep it as my kitchen laptop for playing music, watching YouTube and
looking up recipes. It's completely noiseless, has pretty good speakers, and
since I replaced the drive with an SSD 6 years ago it's pretty quick as well.
Even the original battery still holds about an hour of charge if needed.
Laptops just don't age the way they used to.

~~~
Joeri
Same here with a 2009 base mac mini, upgraded a long time ago to 8gb and an
ssd. My kids use it for scratch, youtube and homework. My wife uses it for
online shopping. The key hardware features are dual cores, 8 gb ram and an ssd
(not emmc or hdd). Anything with that kind of spec can still run modern
software reasonably well.

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arminiusreturns
I'm really sad BlackBerry is no longer making phones. I really wanted a key2,
but I think I'm just gonna have to trade the physical keyboard for something I
can degoogle, because you can't root BBs.

~~~
freemint
There is the Fxtec Pro1 And also the
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gOJQS0IB1LA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gOJQS0IB1LA)
you can also root.

~~~
Pxtl
I'm still upset that they killed their Livermorium Keyboard plan. I bought a
Moto Z with the Livermorium in mind.

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jlokier
For me a Nokia N900 made the best portable SSH terminal. I have two.

Excellent slide-out keyboard, great for typing fast and accurately with
thumbs.

Good screen for small fonts. Touch sensitive but also pen input, never had any
difficulty selecting small text in SSH for copy-and-paste.

I used to do most of my email over SSH and Mutt, using the N900 as terminal.

~~~
u801e
I never had the opportunity to use a N900, but I'm still using a N9 as my
daily phone (though it doesn't have a slide out keyboard). My older N97 works
rather well as a SSH terminal using PuTTY for the Symbian OS (S60 version
IIRC).

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j3th9n
"Ciphers +3des-cbc"?? No way.

[https://sweet32.info](https://sweet32.info)

~~~
exikyut
> _We show that a network attacker who can monitor a long-lived Triple-DES
> HTTPS connection between a web browser and a website can recover secure HTTP
> cookies by capturing around 785 GB of traffic._

> _In our proof-of-concept demo, this attack currently takes less than two
> days, using malicious Javascript to generate traffic._

> _Keeping a web connection alive for two days may not seem very practical,
> but it worked easily in the lab._

Oooookay...

~~~
tomxor
hehe, I'm pretty sure that's way longer than the non-stanby time of this
blackberry.

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vijayr02
Can someone tell me if it's safe to store batteries as shown in the article?
Isn't there a chance that the terminals get shorted by the metal box? I
recently saw some (more than 50) alkaline AA batteries stored in an old
biscuit tin: wonder if it's a hazard in any way?

~~~
fractalbit
It's allright with batteries shown in the article since the connector pads
should be recessed on those, but with regular AA or or other batteries with
exposed leads can - and eventually will - make a short circuit, heat itself up
and leak or cause a fire.

~~~
vijayr02
Thanks for confirming, that's what I suspected. Time for some health and
safety remedials for the family :)

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rcarmo
I used a setup like this for a _long_ time. One of the first things I did was
to build console menus with Python and ncurses for typical tasks (restart
Apache, tail logs, etc.).

The next step was to setup a "monitor" user with separate keys and a
restricted shell that invoked those menus.

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TedDoesntTalk
I mean, it's cool but what happens when GSM is no longer supported? A Pi with
small screen and keyboard might be more future-proof:

keyboard:
[https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32878312498.html](https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32878312498.html)
screen:
[https://www.adafruit.com/product/338](https://www.adafruit.com/product/338)

~~~
reaperducer
Your solution leaves out the primary reason for recycling the Blackberry: all-
in-one simplicity.

The Blackberry terminal he describes can be charged and thrown in a pocket for
days or weeks. It can be used easily and comfortably on a subway, an airplane,
or a restaurant. No wires or dongles or multiple pieces of kit talking to each
other via the airwaves.

You could also hook up an external hard drive and a couple of battery packs to
a Raspberry with a bunch of wires, but it's still an inferior solution
compared with an iPod.

~~~
boring_twenties
Another advantage of the Blackberry is that it can be thrown at a concrete
floor with full force and continue working like it's nothing.

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numpad0
Don’t they have Service Book shenanigans on BlackBerry?

I thought the carrier had to have BB specific APN or something to download MDM
config, even for personally owned phones, much like iOS activation but can
only be done over cellular.

~~~
bonestamp2
Most of them can be unlocked. I paid some random website to brute force unlock
one for about $20. It took them about 6 days. Then they sent me a code, I
entered it in a secret menu and then I was able to buy sim cards when
travelling and it worked great.

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atorodius
Very cool. Wished modern phones would still tick some of these boxes.

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msh
Nice. Emergency SSH is the only think where I still miss physical keyboards on
mobile devices.

~~~
as1mov
SSH + irc + emulating old games :)

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coretx
If security is what you are after, desolder the baseband && only use wifi.

~~~
stragies
How sure are you, that the WIFI/BT/NFC/GPS/X-chip doesn't also have "in-band
remote debugging protocols" like the baseband chip? Or just "normal" bugs like
Kr00k (V2), Krack, etc?

~~~
coretx
Not at all. But i'm fairly sure they'll have to move the party van closer to
you in that scenario.

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KingOfCoders
I have still a passport, it's the form factor I love most, sadly it doesn't
work as a phone, reception is very very bad.

~~~
andmikey
Interesting. I bought a Passport cheap last year to replace my old feature
phone - works a treat, no problems with signal. I wonder if it's a US vs EU
thing...?

~~~
KingOfCoders
Not sure, I'm in the EU, and it's my 3rd Passport because of the reception
problems. Perhaps it's a Berlin problem.

You're commented prompted me to take out my Passport again, and we'll see if
things have changed, thanks.

~~~
numpad0
cellular has bands, usually one carrier operate on handful different bands.
Sometimes a phone only supports some of bands that don’t used in areas you
live in.

When a phone nerds buy a phone they make sure which operator use which band or
which bands are extension of which bands or which subtypes of a phone supports
which bands before they proceed to buy one.

e.g. if a guy wants a phone that support Band 1, 3, 5, 7 and operator A use 2,
4 and 7 but only on rural, while operator B would use 3, 5, 9, 11 but 9 is
basically 1, then he’d get a SIM from operator B.

Old Nokia had suffixes to commercial name like E71-1 for NA or E71-2 for EU
and so on, as well as model number like RM-123 that each covers most bands in
a region. Apple use different model numbers like A1234 for APAC, A1345 for
Sprint US, A1243 for rest of US etc etc. On Samsung it’s N3546 for Korea and
SM-i3456 or something like that, Sony/Sony Ericsson was XXnni for
international and XXnna for CONUS at some point, sometimes completely
different like “Xperia Something W12345”.

I can’t pull up BlackBerry scheme out of my memory but I think it was similar
to Nokia.

------
unixhero
Install an info on emulator and enjoy long train rides.

You are likely to eaten by a grue though.

