Reverse engineering a Viking VOIP phone protocol with Claude Code — Boris Starkov, Eleven Labs

2026-05-29 · Source: AI Engineer · Field: Technology & Digital — Software Development & Engineering, Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning, Robotics & Autonomous Systems · Depth: Advanced, long

Summary

Boris Starkov of Eleven Labs successfully reverse-engineered the proprietary protocol of a legacy Viking VOIP phone, which previously required Windows XP-compatible software and had stumped senior engineers for a year. Utilizing Claude Code, the project involved connecting the phone to a Mac via a router, scanning ports, and brute-forcing two-letter commands to discover valid interactions. To overcome a persistence issue where settings were not saved, a Windows virtual machine running the phone's software was used with a TCP proxy on the Mac to intercept and analyze communication. This man-in-the-middle approach revealed a critical "TS" command with a one-byte checksum, which Claude Code then reverse-engineered, enabling full control and persistent configuration. The resulting "skill" for programming the phone directly was open-sourced, costing \$10-\$100 in tokens.

Key takeaway

For AI Engineers facing legacy hardware integration challenges, consider leveraging large language models like Claude Code for reverse engineering. You can overcome undocumented protocols and compatibility issues by employing AI to orchestrate port scanning, command brute-forcing, and man-in-the-middle traffic analysis. This approach can significantly accelerate protocol discovery and enable new integrations without proprietary software, potentially extending to other hardware devices.

Key insights

Claude Code enabled a software engineer to reverse-engineer a legacy VOIP phone protocol, demonstrating AI's capability in hardware hacking.

Principles

• AI can orchestrate complex reverse engineering tasks.
• Man-in-the-middle attacks aid protocol discovery.
• Brute-forcing small command spaces is effective.

Method

The process involved port scanning, brute-forcing two-letter commands, setting up a Windows VM with a TCP proxy to intercept traffic, and analyzing binary payloads to crack a one-byte checksum for command persistence.

In practice

• Use AI for hardware protocol discovery.
• Employ TCP proxies to analyze legacy software communication.
• Open-source successful reverse engineering "skills".

Topics

• Reverse Engineering
• VOIP Protocol
• Claude Code
• AI-assisted Development
• Legacy Hardware
• TCP Proxy
• Protocol Analysis

Best for: Software Engineer, AI Engineer, Director of AI/ML

Related on AIssential

• Reverse Engineering Your Software Architecture with Claude Code to Help Claude Code — Leveraging AI to reverse-engineer system flows enhances both human and AI understanding for complex software architectures.
• You can build custom hardware for $20 and program it entirely with Claude — The article demonstrates Claude's ability to autonomously program custom IoT hardware for \$20 without human correction.
• Claude Code on desktop can now preview your running apps, review your code & handle CI failures, PRs in background — Prompt repetition, specialized hardware, and agentic coding tools are rapidly transforming AI development and software architecture.
• AI is getting scary good at finding hidden software bugs - even in decades-old code — AI excels at finding obscure bugs in legacy code but also expands the attack surface for unpatchable systems.
• Control Claude Code from your Phone using Telegram — Claude Code Channels enable remote control of AI coding sessions via messaging apps like Telegram and Discord.
• Import AI 453: Breaking AI agents; MirrorCode; and ten views on gradual disempowerment — MirrorCode is an AI system capable of reverse engineering software with thousands of lines of code.

Open in AIssential →

Editorial summary, takeaway, and curation by AIssential. Original article published by AI Engineer.