2014-09-02

Back to the future, I mean past.

I remember the days of Prestel, 1200/75 and a 40/25 text screen. I was 919995141 by the way.

I have been playing with this Iridium Go! thing, and have managed to work out how to get the damn thing to work for a straight IP connection!

It is marketed as having mail, web, text, calls, and even "social media integration", but the feeling in the office was that it would only be those specific things that worked at all. However, Iridum more generally, as opposed to Iridium Go! is marketed as allowing data calls that pass IP. I am pleased to the the Go! is indeed as flexible.

I am testing using a £99/month package that has unlimited data and texts, which makes it ideal for texting, and even spending ages using telnet on a cruise if I get bored.

Basically, the apps that one uses with iPhone and iPad all send some nice SOAP/XML to establish the "Internet call" and send details of firewall settings and stuff to work. They then talk to proxies on 192.168... addresses to get mail and access web. With these selective firewall settings which were not visible (without doing packet dumps) I was, of course, unable to make any sort of connection to the outside world.

However, it seems if one selects "Internet call" on the on-screen menu it makes a connection that works according to the configurable firewall settings. I managed to use telnet to get to irssi to access irc, and post on irc. It has some lag, obviously, but works. It is a tad like those old Prestel days though being 2400bps.

Next trick is playing with mosh to get a more interactive feel. I also need to make something to send the "internet call" settings rather than having to press the button.

So this means I can use their tools for the likes of calls, texts, and email. I can use the laptop for things like irssi/irc, and I can open ports for things like rsync if I need.

Starting to be impressed now.

7 comments:

  1. Where did you get your Iridium Service? Which provider?

    ReplyDelete
  2. I'm a little disturbed that I can figure out the real-world identity of at least one person in that IRC image. The world really does only have about three hundred people in it, doesn't it? (I'm not one of them, I'm just an NPC, but I keep meeting the same PCs all the time.)

    ReplyDelete
  3. Hi - I'm wondering if you ever found a way to programmatically establish the Internet connection from the Go! (versus using the button)?

    I'm trying to figure out how to bring up the connection, rsync a directory, and then shut down the connection. All this on a linux machine and I'm too lazy to write the code -- I suppose I could have done it in all the time i've been Google'ing for a tool!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yes, can be done with a simple curl telling it to connect and what ports to allow. I found by connecting to own wifi on the local IPs it expect , having something on port 80, and dumping the XML it posted.

      Delete
  4. Despite the fact that this can be done quite simply, I’m afraid that you won’t be able to get the result that you originally wanted to get.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Never knew about those kinds of features in Iridium Go! It is really cool and also impressive, man. Thank you for this post.

    ReplyDelete

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