Ive done it! Flashed router and got my sky password!

[markbloke]

Right, I've just spent the last hour or so trying to recover my router. The "Vishal Method" works but it's not always for the faint hearted. I ended up having to pull the power plug about five seconds into the upgrade process to get it into a state where it failed to reboot and so left it open to the recovery process. The progress indicator is no real indicator at all since it continues to run even when the router is no longer plugged in. I suspect it's just a timer.
Next problem was that the power and check led's weren't blinking in an alternating pattern which is a requirement for the recovery proceedure. In the end I got it into this mode by powering the router down, holding down the factory reset button on the back of the router and powering it back up. This got the lights blinking. After that the recovery process went as planned. I now have a sky-free router and can see my user ID which is indeed the mac at skydsl.

I'll check out my password after I've got good and drunk and recovered from the hangover.

[NewsreadeR]

nice one markbloke - i am already on my way tho on the drunk bit, still got to come across the hangover recovery

[hugsie]

Apparently it only happens when you stop being drunk

[Automan]

I would guess the password is the same for all users for if you don't know the mac code which goes with it it is useless.

If you note the boxes the Sky router comes in has the mac code as a bar code on the outside.

My guess is that when they ship them the label is scanned and a matching account is created.

The box knows its mac address so an easy and cheap firmware mod tells it to use that for the login name +@skydsl and has a constant for the password.

If two of you who have hacked your boxes put your password in this thread we will know.

Little risk as we dont have your login names (box mac addresses).

Automan - Live on Sky BB since 09:12 9/9/06

[marks]

I would hope Sky's security is a little better than that. Presumably as they should know who has what modem with what MAC and what line each customer is jumpered to they can clamp down at their BRAS where they will allow PPP logins from.

The idea of using your login/password in another router is an interesting one. If Sky wanted to (and the Lucent Stinger DSLAM is capable of it) they can see what DSL chip set is in your router and it may not be the same as the one in the bog standard Netgear ...... .

[vishal]

if theres any improvements/tricks to my method let me know im sure it will benefit everyone.

ive also found internet explorer better for the process rather than my default browser which is firefox.

[markbloke]

Originally Posted by vishal

[20201]"Login"=maccode@skydsl
[20202]"Password"=hexcode

cant findout the password anywhere else i think...

aa1aa1aa11

thats the format of the password

OK I've had a couple of glasses but this is all read only mode so no harm done.
I've checked my config file and my hex password is the following format:
11a1111a11

That's 1 = numeric, a = alphabetic

Looks like passwords are unique then, which is probably a good thing from security point of view.

Thanks for getting us this far Vishal, I raised several glasses in your honour. Clink!!

[EL_PRESEDENTE]

has anyone tried decoding it the hex i mean?

http://www.paulschou.com/tools/xlate/

see if it colates with some info on the router itself like a serial or network key?

[vishal]

i tried that before, but my one translate to text characters like ¥? etc

[Ratti3]

Good news

I re-attempted to flash but it failed, so I did what markbloke did and power on with the reset button presses down. This caused the lights Power and Tick to alternate. I was then able to flash it the Netgear firmware.
It makes me wonder if you really need to pull the plug out. Next time someone tries this can they attempt it with just the reset button pressed.

I also connected my old ADSL1 router and guess what it worked (with the hex password), although it could only sync at 8mbit.

I am happy now, thanks Vishal and Markbloke

Password is like this: a11111a11a