How to Unlock the Huawei E220 HSDPA modem

Huawei e220 or Vodafone e220 is the HSDPA modem we usually get from Dialog Telecom or Mobitel GSM (probably from Airtel) when we purchase a mobile broadband connection. But usually it’s operator locked, so we can’t switch between networks when the current ISP starts treating us like dust, If you’ve read my previous post you know I have my reasons to unlock the Huawei e220 modem I got from Dialog Telecom. Here I’m gonna explain how I did that and I’ll try to be as simple as I can. But Feel free to ask for help if u need any.

e220

Disclaimer: I’m not responsible, nor will be held liable, for anything you do with the information I provide in this tutorial. Use it at your own risk.

Ok, since we are done with the traditional “Disclaimer” Lets see what you have to do.

First you’ll have to download the following tools.
e220 CardLock UnLocker
e220 Updater version 11.117.09.04.00
QC Mobile Analysis Tool
And a Hex editor. But if you do it correctly you can do it with an ordinary text editor too 😉

Or you can download and extract this file. It contains all the tools we need for the job, including a lightweight portable hex editor 🙂

Basically, Unlocking the e220 is simple as running the E220 CardLock Unlock tool and entering the unlock code and pressing the “Ok” button. But that’s when you “know” the unlock code.

unlock

So how do we find the unlock code for our modem? that’s where the other tools come in handy.

Plug your modem to the computer and run the E220 Updater. Wait till it detects your modem and then press the “Cancel” button. yes! Cancel it! This is just to make it easier for the “real tool” to identify the modem.

Now open the QC BQS Analyzer and click on Hardware forensics menu, select Use Com/USB Port

Now the “QC Com Diag” window should be open. Most of the time your modem and com port is automatically selected on the Serial Com port drop down list. If not you’ll have to select it manually. And then click on the “Send Cmd” button and wait till the message “Successfully sent command” appears on the bottom right.

Now Select ” Read EFS” from the Diag Functions drop down menu and Click the “Lets go” button. When it asks, enter the file name e220.bin and save it. A message saying “Successfully read EFS” should appear.

Now its time to do some hex reading 🙂 Open the e220.bin file from your Hex Editor. And search for the ASCII string Sd, (including the comma) or Search for the for the Hex string 53 64 2c
After few random characters you’ll see a clean 8 digit code. Believe me, it’s easily recognizable and guess what! thats our Unlock code 😀

Once you’ve found the unlock key all you have to do is enter it on the CardLock Unlock utility and click “OK” And your modem is… Unlocked!!! 😀

Hope this will be helpful. I’d absolutely love to know your views on this. Good luck with unlocking your modems 🙂
-seejay

Why I unlocked my HSDPA modem (and why you should too)

As usual it’s old news to my twitter followers that I’ve unlocked my Huawei e220 HSDPA modem I bought with the Mobile Broadband connection from Dialog Telecom. It was operator locked and could only be used with Dialog. Well I must say that I loved mobile broadband. I absolutely loved the fact that I had internet access wherever I go. But unfortunately Dialog has been doing everything possible to ruin that amazing experience. When I got this connection they promised 3.6mbps but I’ve never ever experienced anything more than 1mbps with this. And sometimes the DNS servers get messed making the connection totally unusable.

“Well, they’ll improve the quality of the service eventually and we’ll have a good speed one day” that’s what I thought, but boy was I wrong.

Few weeks back I found that Dialog has officially “changed” the speed of the mobile broadband to 1mbps, It was changed on their web site too. But wait! Then what about the connection I purchased? what about the so called “very very fast” (hilarious! I know! but that’s how they advertised it :p) Internet connection which was supposed to be 3.6mbps???
What came to my mind for the first time was “WTF! who do they think we are? how do they expect to get away with this???” well answer is simple. They perfectly knew that there’s no way they can provide 3.6mbps speed but they LIED! why? why not? They are the *all mighty* Dialog Telecom, and we are just helpless customer fuckNuts.

“They’ve paid us already, So why bother, they can’t switch to any other provider since it’s operator locked” that’s probably what the people at dialog must be thinking.
Well Dialog, I’ve got news for you, Anything which can be locked can be unlocked, at least it’s true with the HSDPA modem you sold us 😛 And thats exactly what I did 😛 and now I own a fully functional Huawei e220 HSDPA modem 😀

The Unlock process was pretty easy and, NO I didn’t pay any money to any company to unlock it 😛 I did it my self after a fair bit of Googling (Thanks to opendns we can still brows the web which is almost impossible if you are using Dialog’s crappy DNS servers 😛 if you are still using them you should seriously try http://opendns.com you’re gonna luv me for suggesting it :P)

Anyway, the first question I got via twitter was “are you gonna switch to Airtel now?” My answer was “No!”

No, I won’t be switching away from Dialog right now. Why? Simply because I’ve agreed to use this connection for 6 months and I will act according to that. Then why did I unlock this? Simple, After 6 months I’m free to do anything, but they know that I can’t switch to any other network and use this modem so they DON’T CARE. But now, since I can switch between networks and still use the same modem, they know I will! and that’s what keep these money hungry companies like Dialog from screwing the customers. And thats exactly why we all should do it! That will teach them a lesson to treat their customers with some respect.

There are lot of places to find ways to unlock the HSDPA modems. And my next post which I’ll be writing tomorrow morning, will also be a how-to on unlocking Huawei e220 which is the most common HSDPA modem in Sri Lanka. Almost all my friends have this model so there’s a good chance you have the same. Let me know If you have any other model. I’ll always be happy to help.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not paid by Airtel or any other company or individual to take down Dialog telecom(LOL!) And this is not just about Dialog. This is true with Mobitel or even with Airtel. My point is that the customer should always have the freedom to switch to a network which offers good quality service. And If they don’t offer that. We should fight for it! I just took the first step.

Increase your Internet connection speed in Windows XP

OK this is not my ordinary way 🙂 writing tips to Windo$ users, but found this trick and thought my Windo$ using friends might find it useful 🙂 yes I do know few pathetic creatures who’ll never get the balls to switch to Linux 😛
By the way, Your internet connection will be a much faster than before coz you get the 20% of bandwidth which was reserved by Windows XP for itself. yes u heard right 😛

read more | digg story

Did you know these basic Firefox Tips?

You May know those BIG things But Did you know these?You can easily double the joy of using Firefox by knowing these essencial Firefox tips. Feel free to comment your Ff tips!-SeeJay

1. To quickly find any word in a web page type /word it will highlight the word and press Ctrl+G to “Find Again” that word again
2. If you wish to remove an item from your Address Bar Drop down menu,
Highlight it without clicking and use Shift+Delete.
3. Clear your Download history to make the download manager more
responsive : Tools | Options | Privacy
4. Type about:cache?device=disk in your address bar to view/save items
that you have in your firefox disk cache
5. Type about:cache?device=memory in your address bar to view/save items
that you have in your Firefox memory cache
6. Drag any link to the Download Manager Window to add & download the
link.
7. If you accidentally delete a bookmark and want to recover it, open the
“Bookmarks Manager” and use Ctrl+Z,
or Edit | Undo.
8. Double Clicking empty space on the Tab Bar will open a ‘New Tab’
9. Holding down the Ctrl key when you right click
to “View Image” or “View Background Image” will open the image in a New
Tab or New Window.
10. A bookmarks Folder’s position can also be Dragged & Dropped but you must hold down
the SHIFT key while Dragging.
11. To prevent a website from replacing/changing your rightclick context
menu go to Tools > Options > Web Features then click the “advanced
tab” and de-select “remove or replace context menus”.
12. You can work offline in Firefox just go to File > Work Offline. This
means that you can browse your previously visited pages even when
you’re offline this is a really cool feature but not many people who use it.
13. You can bookmark the current page by dragging the icon from the
location bar to your Bookmarks folder. You can also drag it to the
desktop to make an icon for that page.
14. To stop animated gifs from moving, press the ESC key.

read more | digg story

Cool Ethernet Crossover Adapter (with PIC)

Hate to remember those number patterns like “1, 2, 3, 6″ and “3, 6, 1, 2″ for making a crossover cable? If yes, This gadget is for you.The Ethernet Crossover Adapter which you can keep on your keyring can help you in those “immediate” situations.Just connect this directly to a standard network cable..

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Top 10 Firefox Chrome URL Tricks

Hi Guys(and gals)
Firefox’s user interface is written using XUL and JavaScript. So you can put the chrome URL in to the address bar and open various tools/ester eggs. Today CC.Org’s going to list the coolest Firefox Chrome URLs. Feel Free to try them if you are using Firefox. Sorry IE fans! you’ll have to find Firefox for this. Read more
SeeJay

read more | digg story

Dancing Firefox

Hi guys! Checkout this one!
How to make fire fox dance! This trick is from SeeJay who brought you the Firefox Inside Firefox trick! It’s In http://www.CyberCapital.Org check this out guys and gals! I’m always here to bring the Coolest!!!
SeeJay

read more | digg story

Forbidden side of a web site-See what web sites hide from you

Hi!
It seems my previous trick (or hack) on Firefox has become a bit famous.isn’t it? Anyways! Here is another hack (man! am I becoming a life hacker or what! 🙄 ) this is a really curious thing to check out.
We all know what search engines do right? yes Search! baby search! they search every where for everything. And what do web site owners do? The do various SEO (search engine optimization) stuff to make the things easy for the search engines so the SE’s will search the directories inside the web sites easily and bring more traffic to the site!. Hm… Ok C.J.! enough of the technical stuff,why are you telling us all this? This is why…
Do you know that there are some directories in web sites that they don’t want the general public to know about? Well, there are! Then what do the site owners do to hide them from us? They bribe the search engines 😀 Hm…
well what they do is put a text file including the directory names, that should be excluded when searching. So the search engines read that file first and exclude their content in the search results page……
But you know that us geeks can’t stay out of trouble right? Yes! there’s a way you can see what are the hidden directories are! All you got to do is put /robots.txt after the domain name and see what the site owners don’t want you to see 😈
How about checking out what Mr.Bill Gates got to hide from us? 😀 Here you go
http://www.micr*s*ft.c*m/r*b*ts.txt
And what about larry and sergei? yeh!
http://www.g**gle.c*m/r*b*ts.txt
And guys(and gals) you better not to use this with WordPress.com or else Our good old buddy Matt will kick me out of WP 😯 .Well,he is a very open guy and may not have anything to hide 😀 But why take the risk 😆
C.J.
Disclaimer : This is highly for educational purposes and I have no responsibility for any trouble you get involved with this.

Firefox Inside Firefox

Hellow Fellows!
You know that many of us spend lot of our computing time on the internet and most of that time we use Firefox tabs to open all our favorite sites and services inside Firefox right?, yes, Gmail inside Ff, Yahoo inside Ff, ebay inside Ff, Banking inside Ff ect. ect. ect… With all these favorites inside Firefox, How about opening Firefox inside Firefox? Not bad ha? and its really easy too! just type in this url in a new tab in Firefox and there you go! Firefox inside Firefox!

chrome://browser/content/browser.xul

Disclaimer: I guarantee that this will work with Firefox. But I have no responsibility of any damage that cause Internet Explorer users by Using this with IE to Open Firefox inside IE 😆
C.J.

update: feel free to visit my new blog http://seejay.net for more Firefox tricks!