Coursework, notes, and progress while attending NYU's Interactive Telecommunications Program (ITP)

Category Archives: Towers of Power

Towers of Power: prototype components

Scanning frequencies The perl scanning script required Net::Telnet, which we realized when we finally specified the command. We defined a csv file with the frequencies we want to scan–then by specifying the path to the file and running the code below, the gqrx scan script finds the frequency with the most activity and records when the signal […]

Final updates

For the final Marco, Dorothy and I going to work on demodulating frequencies that use APCO Project 25. We’d like to see if we can decipher (1) whether communication is occurring and potentially (2) the information being transmitted. We’re not sure if communications might be encrypted but this itself might be useful information. If we have […]

SDR, digital voice & P25

This week we used our SDRs and gqrx to listen to different frequencies. There’s some playing around required with squelch and gain before you can actually listen to something. I looked at radio reference to find radio frequencies used for communications in NYC. These communications happen on narrow FM. If you type in the frequency and […]

Built to Last: ch.3-4 response

I used to think I didn’t understand the motivation of for-profit companies, but now I think I understand it even less. If part of what makes a company ‘visionary’ is its pursuit of varied goals and a ideals, then what’s the point of being for-profit? I understand that making money is important for the continued existence of […]

OpenVPN

This week we made a device a client of the Towers of Power VPN–I used the virtual box we set up last week. Downloading openvpn and running the ssh server were pretty straightforward. The ps command allows you to see a snapshot of current processes. After creating the client.conf file and leaving my cert and […]

Built to Last: ch.1-2 response

It was interesting to reflect on the take-aways presented in the first chapters of Built to Last that apply to any organization. This weekend I was thinking about the non-profit organizations at which I’ve worked, faith in U.S. government institutions (I was amused the the U.S. government’s founding was brought up as as example), and non-state groups […]

Finding IMSI and IMEI numbers

We were tasked this week with finding our phones’ IMSI and IMEI numbers. In researching how to find these, I came across how-to’s that mentioned several other kinds of numbers. Quora helped me clarify exactly what I was looking for: IMSI International Mobile Subscriber Identity. This is a unique identifier that defines a subscriber in […]