New Video from @hak5 Explores Integrating 90s Ringtones into Pagers

The latest video from @hak5 explores integrating 90s ringtones into a pager, emphasizing the importance of sound and vibration alerts for payload testing. At a recent gathering in San Diego, a "name that tune" game was a hit, featuring nostalgic melodies like the Indiana Jones theme. The goal is to know when you are within range of your targets through these sound alerts.

The choice of ringtones and vibrations for the pager is inspired by the creator's childhood memories of programming in BASIC. This popular programming language of the time was often used to play music through the PC speaker using a modified version of the Music Markup Language (MML). This language was used in video games and consoles from the 70s to the 90s, before the advent of the Sound Blaster sound card.

With the rise of mobile phones in the 90s, Nokia adopted a modified version of MML called Ringtone Text Transfer Language (RTTL) to send ringtones via SMS. Today, RTTL tones are still prevalent in the chip tunes community. This history explains why RTTL was integrated into the pager with Ducky Script.

For situations where ringtones are not appropriate, the same language is used for the vibration engine. Thus, with the pager in your pocket, it is possible to "feel" the Wi-Fi. Additionally, it is possible to combine ringtones and vibrations for a unique sensory experience.

The video concludes with an invitation to participate in a contest to compose the pager's startup sound. Participants must submit their composition before September 26 for a chance to be immortalized in the history of the Wi-Fi Pineapple and win a Hack 5 prize. All details and the preferred composition software are available on hackive.org/contest.