The Edge of I-Hacked

from Iron Geek

A cryptographic hash function takes an input and returns a fixed size string that corresponds to it, called a hash. Cryptographic hashes have a lot of uses, some of which are: detecting data changes, storing or generating passwords, making unique keys in databases and ensuring message integrity. This video will mostly cover detecting file changes, but I hope it gets your mind going in the right direction for how hashes can be used. Specifically covered will be tools for creating MD5 hashes in Windows and Linux.

from :: Hack In The Box ::

China is refusing to guarantee that it won’t censor the Internet during this summer’s Olympic Games, but insists that the international media will still be able to function normally. Officials from China’s Technology Ministry took a somewhat odd opportunity to speak about its censorship plans during a press conference after the Olympic torch relay crossed Mount Everest. They said that while the government would be able to “guarantee as much [access] as possible,” there’s no way that China would turn off the Great Firewall entirely during the Games.

“China has always been very cautious when it comes to the Internet,” Technology Minister Wan Gang said, according to Reuters. “I’ve not got any clear information about which sites will be shut or screened. But to protect the youth there are controls on some unhealthy web sites.”

from lifehacker

Web application Glasnost simulates BitTorrent downloads on your computer to determine whether or not your internet service provider (ISP) is throttling your BitTorrent transfers. It does so by measuring the difference between your regular download speed and your BitTorrent download speed, testing against different ports and other variables to get a better idea of what exactly is being throttled. The tool is aggregating the results of the test, which the site is publishing to encourage greater transparency among ISPs. If your ISP turns out to be throttling your BitTorrent traffic, you can still avoid the throttling if you know the right tricks.

from heise Security UK

Members of the Gnucitizen community have announced the House of Hackers Project. House of Hackers is intended to be a social network where hackers can make contacts, form groups, and exchange views. In addition, organizations and companies in the “hacker recruitment market” can post calls for project tenders, creating a kind of jobs board for members of the network.

Companies will pay a fee for each call for tenders to find security consultants or penetration testing teams. The network founders want to use the proceeds for various research projects that will soon be up and running. So far, more than 100 members have registered for the newly founded network.

The network is intended to give companies the opportunity to draw on a broad pool of security experts, while allowing “gifted security consultants to escape from their boring everyday routine and start a new life full of excitement and new opportunities”. However, no clear statement has been made about how ethical or technical standards will be assured. Indeed, the site states “The market is open and it is only supervised by the House of Hackers board members”. This should raise very real concerns such as recently led to the formation of a validation body for penetration testers in the UK.

I suggest signing up, I am one of early adopters!

from lifehacker

Our gadget-obsessed brothers at Gizmodo report that many AT&T hotspots—including Starbucks and Barnes and Noble—have started offering free Wi-Fi access to iPhone users. With a little ingenuity, the same free Wi-Fi access can be granted to your laptop. Using it from your iPhone, you just connect to the hotspot and give the site your iPhone number. To get the same access on your laptop, the key is to fool the hotspot into thinking your browser is still an iPhone. Here’s how:

To masquerade as an iPhone, you’ll need to tweak your browser’s user agent, which web sites use to identify your browser when you connect to the site. In Firefox, you can install the previously mentioned User Agent Switcher. In Safari, you can select the iPhone user agent through the Develop menu (which you can enable by navigating to Preferences -> Advanced and checking “Show Develop menu in menu bar.” Likewise, Opera has user agent switching built in. On the non-Safari browsers, you’ll have to manually add a new iPhone user agent like so.

new-user-agent.pngNow that you’re all set up with your spoofed iPhone user agent, head to the hotspot page and enter your iPhone number (or, if you’ve got permission, maybe the number of an iPhone owner you know).* Once you’re done, you should hopefully have free hotspot access from your full screen rather than your tiny iPhone screen.

I haven’t actually been able to verify this yet (though there are reports of success), so if you give it a try, let’s hear how it worked for you in the comments.

from lifehacker.com

Coupons—they’re never around when you get that sudden urge to splurge on electronics. Not so with a 10-percent-off printable discount at Best Buy, which is posted as an image at a U.S. Postal Service “Mover’s Guide” site with an easily-anticipated URL. Tech blog CyberNet points out that the coupon can be found by slotting the appropriate month and year in, so this month’s coupon, for example, is:

https://moversguide.usps.com/img/coupon/bestbuy/200804_clientarea.gif

If you don’t feel like scoping the fine print on that image, the CyberNet link below details the categories and prices the coupon is good for, for however long the URL hack lasts. I have to assume our readers know of similar URL-based coupons, whether at Mover’s Guide or elsewhere, so spread the wealth in the comments.

from filefront.com

Probably every other person who has ever played an online game has wished they could get some real-life revenge for in-game transgressions. But not many people have the means to do so and even then, you’d think some people’s concience would prevent them from actually doing anything too drastic. Of course none of that stopped one outsourced Comcast tech named Mark Ribeiro. After being hit with a packet flood by someone on Xbox Live, he decided to find a way to get back at the perpetrator. So he used the resources available to him at work to find the kid’s personal info – since he happened to be using Comcast — and thought he’d have a little fun by calling up his house. He described the incident on the Halo 3 forums:

“well the father was furious, not at me however he assured me he would take care of the problem… the father began to yell at his son, i then heard a loud smack, and then sobbing, and then cracking noise as if something was breaking..it then occured to me that the father had just beat the s*** out of his kid, and the cracking noise was the sound of a hammer on an xbox , i decided that being the self indulgent bastard i am, i wanted more…the father put the son on the phone, still sobbing i might add..and i said to him..”do you know who this is??” he answered “no”..i said “remember that guy u cheated some 20-30 minutes ago and i said u would pay??, well guess what son…u just did.”

It’s hard to tell if Ribiero is just making stuff up to be dramatic (because getting kids physically beaten is soooo cool), but regardless, he then went on to gloat about what sort of power his job grants him:

“YES I can powercycle ’shut off your modem’ and lag you out of matchmaking as well…let this stupid little boy be a lesson to u all, dont flood my ip, or anyone elses…because if you plan on doing so i will cancel your service and you WILL have to find an new isp which can mean up to 500$ in installation charges, and for many of you comcast is the ONLY isp in your area…so let me rephrase this..IS IT WORTH IT????”

Now that we’ve established this guy is a huge tool, it’s also worth noting that he used his real name in posting on the forums. Naturally, Comcast has caught wind of this, according to spokesperson, Jenni Moyer:

“We have identified the person who created this inappropriate post as an employee of Convergys, a third-party vendor who provides technical customer support for Comcast customers…We’ve contacted Convergys to demand that he be immediately removed from performing any work for Comcast and that they conduct a thorough investigation and take appropriate disciplinary action.”

I’ve said before that I love to hear stories of internet justice, but those usually involve people wreaking vengeance on others who are bigger tools than themselves. Plus those people usually go through proper channels — which this guy would know about — before going all vigilante, and then they usually just use information that anyone could obtain through normal internet sites. Instead, we’ve got a guy using his access to people’s personal information to carry out his own personal vengeance; and then saying he would gladly do similar things to others who cross him online. Yeah, cause what we really need is some d-bag from Xbox Live having access to people’s phone numbers and credit cards.

consumerist.com
Creative’s executive team will be coming in to quite a mess Monday morning, thanks to its VP of Screw Ups, Phil O’Shaughnessy. Friday morning, he posted a warning on the Creative customer forums that told programmer Daniel_K to stop writing his own drivers for their X-Fi sound cards. The cards still won’t work on Vista over a year after the OS was released, because Creative hasn’t released drivers for them—but by Mr. O’Shaughnessy’s account, Daniel_K is “stealing” from Creative by making the cards work. Then the weekend happened.

Over the weekend, Creative’s forums have exploded with posts from angry customers who have sworn to stop buying their products. There’s already a boycott site up at boycottcreative.com.

from Tom’s Hardware

Philadelphia (PA) - Telecommunications company Comcast announced today that it will no longer restrict Internet subscribers from accessing file-sharing programs and websites.

In the last few months, reports began to surface that Comcast was methodically blocking Internet activity it deemed could be used for illegal content distribution. For example, it made users unable to download BitTorrent files, a modern platform commonly used in video and music pirating.

Comcast came under rigorous fire for its decision, with consumer rights advocates and supporters of Net Neutrality crying foul. In February, it went all the way to a hearing by the Federal Communications Commission.

That kind of pressure became too much for Comcast, despite its continuous claims that it was doing nothing wrong. Comcast had contended that its move was actually to reduce the strain on local cable lines.

“This deal is the direct result of public pressure, and the threat of FCC action, against Comcast, but with Comcast’s history of broken promises and record of deception, we can’t just take their word that the Internet is now in safe hands,” said Marvin Ammori, general counsel of the media reform group Free Press in an AP story.

Comcast said it will remove its current discriminatory protocols by the end of the year.

from Yahoo Finance

The maker of the popular photo-editing software Photoshop on Thursday launched a basic version available for free online.

San Jose, Calif.-based Adobe Systems Inc. says it hopes to boost its name recognition among a new generation of consumers who edit, store and share photos online.

While Photoshop is designed for trained professionals, Adobe says Photoshop Express, which it launched in a “beta” test version, is easier to learn. User comments will be taken into account for future upgrades.

Photoshop Express will be completely Web-based so consumers can use it with any type of computer, operating system and browser. And, once they register, users can get to their accounts from different computers.

Web-based software is increasingly popular, and Adobe knows it’s got to get on that train, said Kathleen Maher, an analyst at Jon Peddie Research.

Many kinds of software are available for use online in a trend known as “software as a service,” or “cloud computing.” The earliest were e-mail programs, but they now include services to create and manage content and even whole operating systems. And they don’t require time-consuming upgrades because they’re maintained by the service provider.

Google Inc. provides a host of such services, as do Microsoft Corp. and others.

“This is the battlefield where Adobe and Microsoft and Google are going to fight some pretty big battles,” Maher said.

Photoshop enters the online photo-management arena many years after such services first appeared. Some companies have already made a big name for themselves, like 9-year-old storage solution Shutterfly Inc., photo-editing service Picnik or image-sharing site Photobucket Inc.

Adobe says providing Photoshop Express for free is part marketing and part a strategy to create up-sell opportunities. It hopes some customers will move from it to boxed software like its $99 Photoshop Elements or to a subscription-based version of Express that’s in the works.

Ron Glaz, a research analyst at IDC, says the move was necessary for Adobe to keep pace. Users are less likely to switch to a software they aren’t familiar with, he said.

“They have a whole market that they are missing out on, and they need to make sure that the market is aware there is a Photoshop solution for them. As that market grows and becomes more sophisticated, hopefully it will generate money,” Glaz said.

“It’s one of those things, if you can’t beat them, join them,” Glaz said. “If they don’t join them, the long run could be really painful.”

On the Web: http://www.photoshop.com/express