Does anyone happen to know how/if one can connect to the 9-pin serial port on the back of a Motorola CyberSURFR cable modem? I have a console cable attached to my computer and the other end to the port. I then used a terminal emulation program to attempt a connection to the modem but it would not spit anything back to me. Is it possible to connect to the modem this way?

Ive read 2 docs that briefly go over this port. One says (motorola official) that the port is for dial-modems or something rather. The other doc said its a "reserved" port which usually means something they dont want the public to know about, ie a console port.

Any info would help

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cEnsE
evil, corruption and bad taste

did you send some carriage returns? That usually gets the dialouge going. Also you might have incorrect port settings. Try using something like terraterm that adjusts that in a fairly automatic fashion...

Cable modems come with a MAC address (you should be able to find it on the modem without a problem). That normally needs to be called in (usually with the serial number) to someone at the ISP controlling the modems in your area. Connecting via a serial port as opposed to ethernet shouldn't alter that requirement, and if you do pull it off, you're better off getting a network card and hooking it up that way.

Im not trying to use the serial port for connecting to the internet. Im attempting to find out if the port is a console port, meaning that one could program the modem from there. The subject was about hacking, not connecting to the net.

I did try sending several carridge returns and still nothing, I tried sending, many-a-many-a things to the port but nothing seems to have worked yet.

Since I do have a pin-out table of the port, my next step will be to find the pin-out of my COM or tty port on the computer and _make_ a cable with the correct pin arrangement and see if that will work... agh, making serial cables, not quite as easy as CAT5

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cEnsE
evil, corruption and bad taste

Fair enough, but what exactly do you want to program the modem to do? I wasn't aware they could serve another purpose (save stripping them down for transistors or something).

well actually, i was planning to remove the upload cap on my modem which i have read _was_ possible, at least at the time of the writting but i cannot remember when that was, most likely long ago and that was patched...

i did test the pin out and everything is the same as a normal DB-9 serial port. its unfortunate for me i guess.

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cEnsE
evil, corruption and bad taste

Ever since the cable modem industry switched over to DOCSIS, taking off the upload caps has been pretty much impossible. :\ It was nice before without 'em.. well, good luck, anyway, if you haven't given up yet.

I did meet at least one person (although it was at least a year ago, probably more) who didn't have an upload cap to worry about, but that was because he was using this older LANCity modem, gray with four lights in a square and a bunch of fins. I think he just got lucky, though- I had one, and when they switched, it basically stopped working entirely. I had to swap out those kinds of modems for people who had the same problems. I suppose if you ever ran across one, you might be able to use it, but probably not.

well thats no good for my prospects. Oh well, on to other exploits that are fun and only slightly illegal.

happy days!
(woooo)



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cEnsE
evil, corruption and bad taste

Did you try different speed settings on your terminal program? 9600 8N1 (no flowcontrol) is standard for consoles, but - the company who makes your cable modem may not want to be standard.

I'd mess around with those settings, and then maybe try some different pinouts. You could open up the cable modem and take a look at what wires go where to get a better understanding of what the pinouts should be.



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mekhet
Exploiting the devil for the greater good.
http://www.mightychuck.com

Ive not tried messing with all the setting yet, and it would be logical for motorola to use non standard settings if they wanted to hide the port.

I looked at opening the modem before but I will need 2 things to do that.

1| A tamper proof bit
2| extreme caution

This kind of modem was not really made to be opened unless totally necessary. At the moment I still have some things like college finals etc... damn commitments, always get in the way of the good things

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cEnsE
evil, corruption and bad taste