advogato: Barry and USB snooping
3rd November 2005
One of the projects currently on the front burner for me is a library and application set for syncing the USB model of the RIM Blackberry handheld on Linux. Net Direct is the company behind this project, with full plans to open source it when it's ready. I may put it on SourceForge early if there is interest, but there's not a lot of code to hack on yet.
The first major task, of course, is to figure out the binary protocol that these devices use. I know about the documentation for the serial protocol at the Cassis project, but unfortunately, the USB protocol isn't the same.
There are rumours that the USB protocol may have been reverse engineered already, but my Google searches come up empty. If anyone knows of such a document, please email me. It would bring this project to fruition much faster.
While I'm on the topic, let me plug two fine USB tools:
- usbsnoop - a Windows filter with source code that intercepts the USB conversation between application and device.
- libusb - an LGPL cross-platform library that lets you work with the low level USB interface in userspace, without developing a kernel driver first.
To all the folks that replied to my previous diary entry, thanks! I apologise for being so busy I couldn't respond in depth as I wanted to.