zsun News - CNX Software - Embedded Systems News

January 25, 2016February 13, 2016 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 17 Comments

Zsun Wifi Card Reader Can Now Run OpenWrt

Zsun Wifi card reader is a tiny micro SD card reader with WiFi connectivity, and while people managed to access the device serial console a few months ago, the plan was to eventually run OpenWrt since it’s based on the popular Atheros AR9331 WiSoC combined with 64MB RAM and 16MB SPI Flash. It would also be one the smallest OpenWrt capable device with dimensions of 30 x 33 mm. A team of Polish managed this feat, and have now posted instructions to install OpenWrt, as well as other documentation, for example a description of the board’s GPIOs. There are four methods to flash OpenWrt: Solder on an Ethernet jack and flash from the original uboot (hard but safe) Reflash the bootloader from the original firmware to one that supports upload over serial (less soldering but fatal if you mess up) Reflash the firmware from the original firmware using mtd_write (easy […]

July 13, 2015 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 21 Comments

Linux Based Zsun WiFi Card Reader Has Been Hacked Too…

A little while ago, I purchased Zsun SD111 W-Fi USB flash drive, and after several tentatives, I finally found a way to access the device’s serial console. Since then the company announced another wireless storage device with Zsun Wi-Fi card reader, and Zoobab decided to try to hack it too. Since the device is pretty hard to open without damaging the enclosure, connecting the serial pin was not really an option, and the first exploit was to input shell commands in the web interface SSID field… For example, entering reboot there, would indeed reboot the device. However, this would still not allow full shell access, and finally after a broader port scan, it was found out that TCP port 11880 was open for telnet daemon. You can then access the shell as root with the same password as SD111: “zsun1188”. For some reasons, telnet can’t work with the device, and […]

February 27, 2015February 27, 2015 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 37 Comments

Zsun Wifi Card Reader Adds up to 64GB to Your Smartphone

I’ve previously covered Zsun SD11x USB flash drives with 8 to 128 GB internal flash, a battery, and Wi-Fi connectivity in order to easily add storage to devices without micro SD slots. The company has now launched a new Wi-Fi card reader to do the same, but with your own micro SD card instead allowing up to 64GB extra storage, and easy replacement. Zsun card reader specifications: SoC – Qualcomm Atheros AR9331 WiSoC System Memory – 256 Mbit RAM (32 MB) Storage – Internal flash for firmware (capacity TBD), micro SD slot up to 64GB Connectivity – 802.11 b/g/n Wi-Fi @ 150 Mbps USB – 1x USB 2.0 port for power and use as standard USB card reader Dimensions – 33 x 30 x 13 mm There’s no battery, so you’d have to connect the dongle to a power bank, PC, car charger etc.. to power it. If you connect […]

November 16, 2014November 16, 2014 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 15 Comments

Zsun SD111 Is Now “Officially” an Hackable Wireless Flash Drive

Zsun SD11x are Wi-Fi flash drives for 8 to 128 GB eMMC, alternative to Sandisk or Kingston. Yesterday, I soldered the UART pins to Zsun SD111 (8GB) flash drive to access the serial console, but I did not manage to enter the terminal as it was password-protected. I posted my results anyway, as I was convinced I would get some clever ideas from my readers, some of which appeared to be a little time consuming, but Zoobab offered a simple solution that consisted in changing the boot parameters, by replacing /sbin/init by /bin/sh. The first step is to interrupt the boot by pressing space or another key, in order to access U-boot. Now we can check the U-boot environment ar7240> printenv bootargs=console=ttyS0,115200 root=31:02 rootfstype=jffs2 rw init=/sbin/init mtdparts=ar7240-nor0:64k(u-boot),64k(u-boot-env),6720k(rootfs),1216k(uImage),64k(NVRAM),64k(ART) bootcmd=bootm 0x9f6B0000 bootdelay=4 baudrate=115200 ethaddr=0x00:0xaa:0xbb:0xcc:0xdd:0xee ipaddr=10.168.168.1 serverip=10.168.168.10 stdin=serial stdout=serial stderr=serial ethact=eth0 Environment size: 361/65532 bytes Let’s keep everything the same, except the init, […]

November 15, 2014June 18, 2018 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 5 Comments

Zsun SD111 Wi-Fi Flash Drive Hacking Tentative

Two days ago, I reviewed Zsun SD111 a 8GB Wi-Fi flash drive based on Atheros AR9331, and I discovered the telnet port was open, but I could not access it because none of the standard username and password combinations (root/root, admin/admin, root/admin, etc…) would work, which is actually a good thing. However, as I opened the stick, the serial pins were clearly marked, so today I’ve soldered some Dupont wires to access the serial console. In order to open the stick, you need a rigid sharp object to push the top cover via the neck strap hole, as shown below, and another tool (mine looks similar to a scalpel) to help popping the cover up. Then I connected the three wires to a USB to TLL debug board, connected it to my PC, started minicom (115200 8N1), and pressed the power button. I could see U-Boot 1.1.4 message, so it […]

November 13, 2014February 2, 2016 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 18 Comments

Zsun SD111 Wireless USB Flash Drive Review

Zsun SD111, SD112 and SD113 are Wi-Fi / USB flash drives with respectively 8GB, 16 GB and 32GB storage. GearBest sent me the 8GB version (SD111) for review, as it could be an interesting platform to hack. I’ve take picture of the device, take it apart to check the board, review quickly the standard features with Android and Ubuntu, and try to access the board from the network. Zsun SD111 Unboxing I received the device in the following package. The flash drive comes with a micro USB to USB cable for charging and accessing the device from a computer, and a user’s manual in Chinese. You’ll probably prefer using a soft copy user manual in English… Zsun SD111 Board and Battery To open the stick, insert a sharp and thin object in the hole for the neck strap, and push upwards to lift the top cover a little, and finish […]

October 10, 2014November 23, 2014 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 15 Comments

ZSun Wireless USB Flash Drives Add up to 32GB to Your Mobile Device

Yesterday, I wrote about the Egg personal cloud storage device which allows you to easily store and share your files without having to rely on cloud services, and also includes a touchscreen display. But it might be possible to achieve the main selling point of that product, that is keeping your data private, while accessing it from anywhere, at a fraction of the cost, by using a Wireless USB flash drive instead. Some well known companies such as Kingston (rather expensive), and Sandisk (much more affordable) already offer such products, but I’ve been informed Zsun, a Chinese company, was also manufacturing such devices with up to 32 GB capacity. The company calls its wireless flash drive “Apple Disks” showing how much money you could save with their device, by showing the ridiculous price different between apple devices with difference storage capacity, but they can also work with Android devices, as […]