Sony NEX/Axx Firmware hacking

It´s not a free job, that is exactly why the Kickstarter project would be started. I would need for the developer to tell me exactly what he needs (money for cameras, research tools, his efforts, etc) and to outline the project's goals and milestones more specifically so people will understand what they are jumping into.
 
A kickstarter might be a good way to get funds for cameras to experiment with (and not risk bricking your own camera), but most users won't contribute unless there is some proof that the person/s behind the campaign have the knowledge required and have already made some sort of progress (as little as it may be). I'm not trying to discourage any of you in any way (I'm quite looking forward actually), but I need you to be aware of this, as I think it makes more sense to spend more time researching and starting the campaign when you think some progress has been made. That will surely get you more support from the community. Obviously, only you can judge how much progress has been made and whether or not you require the hardware as quickly as possible.
 
mdebono said:
A kickstarter might be a good way to get funds for cameras to experiment with (and not risk bricking your own camera), but most users won't contribute unless there is some proof that the person/s behind the campaign have the knowledge required and have already made some sort of progress (as little as it may be). I'm not trying to discourage any of you in any way (I'm quite looking forward actually), but I need you to be aware of this, as I think it makes more sense to spend more time researching and starting the campaign when you think some progress has been made. That will surely get you more support from the community. Obviously, only you can judge how much progress has been made and whether or not you require the hardware as quickly as possible.
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When you´re right, you´re right. :)
 
I think that everybody can agree on the fact that this kind of discussions is quite useless here and doesn't help in any way any form of hacking on the Nex system.
Like all the others here I'm really hoping that someone is progressing in this job.
Like many others I'm no coder and have no idea how to do it, so I cannot help on the programming side, but I'm willing to help in ways I can do: testing, funding.
Obviously none of us wants to be cheated, misunderstood, understimated and so on, that's why things are getting hot here.
We are glad that somebody is having success in hacking our beloved cameras, but since now proof of evidence is clearly not enough: a video of a directory tree and nothing else.
The informations are not organized, reports are random and vague, people complain about funding or helping but without some sort of coordination nothing can come out well.
Someone1.00 and Mojod20 can easily understand that here's a horde of enthusiasts waiting for the nex grail to come, so expect some pressure and be ready to manage it and make all this energy turn into your side as any kind of useful help.
If news become more organized and consistent misbelivers will disappear, volunteers will step out the whole community will benefit of it.
 
jazzroy said:
I think that everybody can agree on the fact that this kind of discussions is quite useless here and doesn't help in any way any form of hacking on the Nex system.
Like all the others here I'm really hoping that someone is progressing in this job.
Like many others I'm no coder and have no idea how to do it, so I cannot help on the programming side, but I'm willing to help in ways I can do: testing, funding.
Obviously none of us wants to be cheated, misunderstood, understimated and so on, that's why things are getting hot here.
We are glad that somebody is having success in hacking our beloved cameras, but since now proof of evidence is clearly not enough: a video of a directory tree and nothing else.
The informations are not organized, reports are random and vague, people complain about funding or helping but without some sort of coordination nothing can come out well.
Someone1.00 and Mojod20 can easily understand that here's a horde of enthusiasts waiting for the nex grail to come, so expect some pressure and be ready to manage it and make all this energy turn into your side as any kind of useful help.
If news become more organized and consistent misbelivers will disappear, volunteers will step out the whole community will benefit of it.
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I cannot see any community here. Just individual who hope to get something. You've just mentioned bad organization of something here. Why not to organize it? It's not all about programming here. Dedicated forum for this project, organized information... Everybody can help but can just write words.
 
As said, I am in full positivity mode about this mod, -It is a shame that due to the hackers wanting to stay unknown, it makes it hard for us to connect with them as a community. Certain people get hostile and assume the worst towards these shadowy characters:). I consider the broad bunch of nex 5n users as a great community - we have stuck with the system even though it has some of the downfalls. Why? because it is a brilliant camera overall. A hack is just the icing on the cake to me. My enthusiasm is there because these guys are doing stuff I could never do, stuff beyond my comprehension. The respect I have to the guys on the ground making this effort I try to match with my offering of a prototype camera housing - one of the 2 units which have yet to be pre ordered (out of the limited 10). I just wish there were more people willing to put down more than just a promise of cash to the guys who are working on this. Clearly these guys are doing it for something other than cash.
 
Someone1.00, how can we help if you think here is a bunch of individuals?
Now you say that we can help setting a whole new forum (maybe you mean just a thread?), but some posts ago when I proposed exactly the same thing your answer was:
someone1.00 said:
You can start a new forum if you want to. I dont mind.
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It seems that now you mind, so, what do you suggest?
A new thread here on dvxusers or awhole new indipendent forum?
Let's discuss it and I'll work on it.
 
From here on out maybe the plan should be to set up a new/offical thread or forum. It doesn't matter who does it, someone just needs to take the lead. From there the people working on a hack can update at their leisure. In the mean time the "community" can maybe spread the word, get more people involved who will either eventually donate or have some other technically/hacking ability to contribute with the work itself. Once progress has moved as far possible forward WITHOUT funding, THEN we can start a kickstarter project. Ideally we will have made enough progress that we'll have information and a guideline of where we're headed to post on kickstarter. Because of the community everyone else will have been growing it we'll be able to quickly fund the project at which time those doing the real work can purchase equipment ect. and move forward giving updates once a week or whatever the case may be.
 
jazzroy said:
Now you say that we can help setting a whole new forum (maybe you mean just a thread?), but some posts ago when I proposed exactly the same thing your answer was:

It seems that now you mind, so, what do you suggest?
A new thread here on dvxusers or awhole new indipendent forum?
Let's discuss it and I'll work on it.
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My idea is very clear. If you think that a dedicated forum may help(i think so) to firmware hack you may try it. And i mean forum (any useful free engine with free hosting and sub-domain). Tasks and resource planning may help (and may not help since the only tech resource here is me and i don't need any planning or dates), If you know such engine or you able to do something like this just do it. Don't ask. Show result and problems says for themselves. As i already noted this may die or may became an official fw home. I don't have any suggestion. I need to figure out tech stuffs.
 
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someone1.00 said:
This helps with tracing. The kernel itself will be a step forward.
And about camera specific drivers. They cannot run in user mode. All the drivers resides in rootfs that is visible on my video. All of them shold be replaced with stubs in the future to trace user mode modules. Generally this helps to check suggestions without camera at all. Not an easy way but without lot of free money is the only way to try any idea. Camera has no gdb inside. At least in firmware.
if this kernel is an ordinal one like in any hacked arm router it should not be difficult to compile it and run under the emulator. But it's not completely the same.
One side question. Can they copyright the kernel? They added some changes to it but general license cannot be changed...
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Just because files reside in rootfs, doesn't mean they are kernel mode modules/drivers. Also, I don't think you can simply stub out the modules to determine how/what the system is calling. As soon as the initialization fails, it's not going to go any further. If you're lucky, you will be able to change parameter files.. otherwise, I think you're going to have to try to disassemble the code. You may be able to modify the kernel to send tracing data over the USB port... that would probably be the best way to debug the live camera.. or dump data into flatfiles on the SD card that you can analyze later.
 
Is there a plan to release this to the small platoon of folks interested in this, and will we be able to get a clean hdmi signal?
 
shootin said:
Just because files reside in rootfs, doesn't mean they are kernel mode modules/drivers
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I guess .ko extension may mean it. Anyway. Emulation is not possible. QEMU crashes with original kernel. Nobody able to compile published sources into a kernel. Dead end.

Only real thing helps. I've posted some hot tasks here. The last one was an updater researching. This may help. Any general long way ideas cannot help at all.
 
Apparently I don't have the ability to PM (yet?), but is there some real technical roadblock to compiling the kernel? Are they using a propietary toolchain?
 
someone1.00 said:
We all have the same information. You can try to search over CE Linux. I cannot help here.
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Hmm. Well, I noticed that they included a config file that was modified rather recently, so I tried a make with that and something seems to have completed...

Edit: I ***might*** have built a kernel, but either I don't have the right config or I'm missing part of the toolchain to build any boot images. Kernel modules look pretty sparse too.

Edit2: I forgot to get mkimage. Out popped a uImage, now what???
 
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REVENGE said:
Hmm. Well, I noticed that they included a config file that was modified rather recently, so I tried a make with that and something seems to have completed...

Edit: I ***might*** have built a kernel, but either I don't have the right config or I'm missing part of the toolchain to build any boot images. Kernel modules look pretty sparse too.

Edit2: I forgot to get mkimage. Out popped a uImage, now what???
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I want to look on binary kernel. I need to know firmware sources to compare it with binary from firmware. Next step is to run your kernel under QEMU. Any image for boot.
 
someone1.00 said:
I want to look on binary kernel. I need to know firmware sources to compare it with binary from firmware. Next step is to run your kernel under QEMU. Any image for boot.
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What parameters should I use to run? I don't have the right toolchain for building U-boot, so can I load the zImage / the uncompressed kernel?
 
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