Archive for August 3rd, 2012

Hmmmmmmmm.

Friday, August 3rd, 2012

In the DEFCON 20 day 2 notes discussing the ADS-B presentation by Renderman, I alluded to some work on using USB TV tuners to pick up ADS-B broadcasts.

I did a little more research on this earlier today, just to satisfy my own curiosity.

The RTL2832U outputs 8-bit I/Q-samples, and the highest theoretically possible sample-rate is 3.2 MS/s, however, the highest sample-rate without lost samples that has been tested so far is 2.8 MS/s. The frequency range is highly dependent of the used tuner, dongles that use the Elonics E4000 offer the widest possible range (64 – 1700 MHz with a gap from approx. 1100 – 1250 MHz). When used out-of-spec, a tuning range of approx. 50 MHz – 2.2 GHz is possible (with gap). [Emphasis in the original – DB]

Holy cow! I’ve been wanting to mess with software defined radio, but the $1,500 cost for hardware is a bit discouraging. This looks like an excellent way to get started for about $20 instead. The necessary software is linked from the rtl-sdr page, and you can even get a script that will build gnuradio with the proper components.

What has been successfully tested so far is the reception of Broadcast FM and air traffic AM radio, TETRA, GMR, GSM, ADS-B and POCSAG.

Yow!

Edited to add 8/4: We are not amused. In the past two days, we have been to Fry’s. The shelves at Fry’s were almost completely stripped bare of USB TV adapters. We have also been to three different branches of Discount Electronics; none of them had any of the listed adapters. We have checked Google, and all of the adapters listed with the E4000 tuner do not appear to be available from vendors in the United States. The only adapter on rtl-sdr’s list that we were able to find was the Ezcap EZTV645 DVB-T Digital TV USB 2.0 Dongle with FM/DAB/Remote Controller which DealExtreme sells. However:

  1. There are conflicting reports as to whether this is the one rtl-sdr is talking about, and whether this one has the E4000 tuner.
  2. There are a lot of reports that DealExtreme is slow in shipping; as in, a month or longer.

I’ve ordered the Newsky TV28T that’s listed on the sysmocom site (linked from the rtl-sdr page). With shipping, it came out to 23.30 euros, or about $28.86 in dollars. That’s still well within my price range for tinkering with SDR. I’ll update when the device gets here.

In the meantime, if anyone has any GNURadio or general SDR tips, advice, or suggestions, please feel free to leave them in comments or shoot me an email. Contact addresses are in the usual place.

(And thanks, Borepatch.)

Another reason not to use Facebook.

Friday, August 3rd, 2012

Alberto Gutierrez was married to Mayela Gutierrez Gil. The relationship was somewhat rocky, and Mr. and Mrs. Gutierrez decided to divorce.

The divorce itself was somewhat unpleasant. Mr. Gutierrez was charged with “making criminal threats, stalking and two counts of disobeying a domestic relations court order”. The stalking charge was dismissed by a judge, who also threw out one of the two counts of disobeying a court order. Mr. Gutierrez was acquitted by a jury on the other counts.

So what? Well, it seems that Mrs. Gutierrez was romantically involved with Detective Phillip Solano of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department.

…during Gutierrez’s criminal trial, information surfaced that the man’s wife, Mayela Gutierrez Gil, and the detective were Facebook friends who had exchanged messages and calls. “How are you precious? I miss you a lot,” read one from the detective, according to Gutierrez’s attorney, Arnoldo Casillas.

Mr. Gutierrez sued LACSO, detective Solano, and another LACSO deputy, Russell Verduzco. Verduzco was accused of “conspiring with Solano to cover up evidence that showed Gutierrez’s wife was in fact the one making threats against him.”

The jury awarded Mr. Gutierrez $457,500.

Sheriff’s Department spokesman Steve Whitmore said Solano will now face an internal affairs investigation. Although, he said, sheriff’s officials “believe we have very strong grounds for an appeal, so that’s going to be carefully considered.”

The Lazy Journalist’s Friend.

Friday, August 3rd, 2012

Summer is here? Slow news day? Your editor wants you to come up with something to fill space?

No worries, mate: you can always do a slideshow of weird crap you can buy from Amazon.

Random roundup, August 3, 2012.

Friday, August 3rd, 2012

We’ve got wrongful convictions, we’ve got banana republicans, and we’ve got pizza. Something for everyone: a comedy tonight. (Dammit, I miss Zero Mostel.)

In 2004, Omar Bradley, then mayor of Compton, was convicted of misappropriation of public funds. Also convicted with Mr. Bradley were Amen Rahh, a former council member, and John D. Johnson II, the former city manager.

Prosecutors said the men had used their city-issued credit cards for personal items and “double dipped” by taking cash advances for city business expenses and then charging the items to their city credit cards. Bradley was accused of misusing about $7,500 for purchases that included golf balls and shoes, cigars, a three-day stay in a penthouse hotel room and in-room movies.

Bradley’s conviction was on a felony charge: he served three years, could not hold public office, and lost his teaching credentials.

However, in another case last year, the California Supreme Court held:

…that officials must know or be “criminally negligent” for not knowing that they are doing something illegal in order to be guilty of misappropriation of funds.

The punchline?

Based on that case, the appeals court reversed its previous decision in Bradley’s case and overturned his conviction Wednesday.

(Rahh’s and Johnson’s convictions were not overturned.)

I’ve previously alluded to the police shootings in Anaheim, and observed that I don’t have a clear grasp of what’s going on. The NYT ran this story while I was on vacation, which I think gives a decent overview, and follows-up today with this story, which is more about the political and cultural divisions in Anaheim. (Note the correction at the bottom.)

As long as we’re on the NYT site, there’s another interesting story to talk about. Baithe Diop was a cab driver who was killed in 1995. Five men were convicted of his murder as part of  “an elaborate plot to distract the police from the intended crime: the theft of $50,000 worth of cocaine from a passenger in Mr. Diop’s car”.

But now, 15 years after the criminal trials, federal authorities have concluded that all five of those now imprisoned for the murder were innocent of the crime.

More:

The new findings suggest that there was a colossal breakdown in the criminal justice system. Robert T. Johnson, the Bronx district attorney since 1989, said through a spokesman on Thursday that his office had been notified of the new evidence discovered by federal prosecutors but had not yet been able “to resolve all of the questions that have been raised by this evidence.”

It now appears that the murder was actually committed by members of the “Sex Money Murder” gang.

So. Pizza. Mangia Pizza. As we have previously noted, Mangia went into Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2010. Mangia’s founder has proposed a plan to get them out of Chapter 11. However, another creditor has proposed a counter plan. The founder’s plan would (in theory) pay back unsecured creditors 100% of what they’re owed over the next ten years; the competing plan would give that creditor control of the company, and pay back the unsecured creditors 22 cents on the dollar. The founders have since modified their plan so that the unsecured creditors will get 22 cents on the dollar immediately,”with assurances to pay the remainder of the amount owed in coming years”.

(If I was a creditor, given the situation, I wouldn’t count on getting 100% of my money back in ten years, or ever. I’d take my 22 cents on the dollar and consider anything after that found money.)

What makes this even more interesting is that the competing creditor, “Cloud Cap LLC,  a subsidiary of Austin-based management and investment firm Pileus Group LLC” became a creditor by buying a claim from a place called Knife Sharpist, which (duh) sells knives and does knife sharpening. (I’ve been there a couple of times. They do good work.) The total amount of Knife Sharpist’s claim was $244.66.

Cloud Cap’s plan calls for changes to Mangia’s menu, a revamp of the restaurant’s décor and additional locations.

(For Austin residents who might be confused, the Mangia at Gracy Farms (which the Statesman constantly calls The Domain: it isn’t) and the one on Lake Austin are owned by another company and aren’t involved in the Chapter 11 proceeding. The Chapter 11 proceedings only involve the location on Mesa and the one at the airport. But it does make me wonder: if Cloud Cap takes control, will they force those two locations to change the name?)

[Michelle] Musick [Mangia’s bookeeper] said Mangia’s management has already taken steps to get the company back on stable footing, including closing stores in Round Rock and on Guadalupe Street near the University of Texas campus.
“The Guadalupe store was actually breaking even, but the rent was so astronomically high,” she said. “The Round Rock store was bleeding money.”

Mangia, according to the article, owes “more than $750,000”. (How much more?)

Records show that the Internal Revenue Service is owed the most, about $190,000. Other creditors include the state comptroller’s office, Travis County and the Round Rock school district, as well as several businesses.