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Debricking Amazon Echo / Booting Debian

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whatever_42

Debricking Amazon Echo / Booting Debian
« on: October 11, 2017, 08:11:31 am »
Hey,

I am afraid I kinda bricked my Echo. I followed the guide https://labs.mwrinfosecurity.com/blog/alexa-are-you-listening and everything worked. However, then I tried to make it more userfriendly and tried to install an SSH client using opkg, which apparently ruined some files. Currently I am able to boot the Echo and it also sets up it's own Wifi but connecting it to my actual wifi does not work.

Is there anyway to overwrite the internal memory/flash with the image provided https://github.com/echohacking/wiki/wiki/Echo there? So far I have only been able to use their Debian image to interrupt the boot process but unable to boot the actual Debian. It keeps telling me that it did not find the file /boot/uImage . I am not sure if this is due to the SD card reader. Uboot tells me that it is also unable to read the partition table of mmc dev 0 (which appears to be the SD card).  I was hoping to boot this Debian and then make a backup from the internal storage and afterwards to just overwrite the eMMC. Any ideas would be highly appreciated.

asianrocker

Re: Debricking Amazon Echo / Booting Debian
« Reply #1 on: October 11, 2017, 09:22:16 pm »
You should ask on where you follow your links. I read the link however and what is the point of doing that? Seems so messy to do and for what?

You probably miss a step or connected in wrong place. Who knows.

Most people here are clueless on software part of echo what more a hardware hack. that honestly doesn't make sense to me.

mike27oct

Re: Debricking Amazon Echo / Booting Debian
« Reply #2 on: October 11, 2017, 09:28:22 pm »
OP. contact Echo support, they might be able to help you.  My guess:  kiss your Echo goodbye.  Anyone who does what you did must face the consequences.

Re: Debricking Amazon Echo / Booting Debian
« Reply #3 on: October 12, 2017, 04:48:24 am »
you may want to go to the xda forums.  they are the experts when it comes to fixing bricks.  in addition you may want to go to the site you get the info from and ask there.

whatever_42

Re: Debricking Amazon Echo / Booting Debian
« Reply #4 on: October 18, 2017, 04:46:03 am »
So in the meantime I managed to fix the Echo. Unfortunately it required a second Echo because I needed to dump the image of the main partition. The image can be dumped and written back to the Echo with the diag partition that is also present on the Echo. The image can be transfered via screen and the zmodem. This is rather slow which is why i would recommend compressing the image.

The image also seems to be somewhat region-gated? I tried the English image and it didn't fix the Echo. But a second German image did. In case anybody needs help debricking theirs, I'll be happy to help.

asianrocker

Re: Debricking Amazon Echo / Booting Debian
« Reply #5 on: October 26, 2017, 04:15:40 am »
Meanwhile, is there a GOOD reason for doing this?  Illuminate me.

whatever_42

Re: Debricking Amazon Echo / Booting Debian
« Reply #6 on: October 30, 2017, 02:25:58 pm »
I am working at a government facility and we are trying to showcase, that devices in general do not have to be nice and are susceptive to manipulation. So no, this is not for my own personal use.