Can’t resist to post this one…

A security analyst (and a Black Hat USA speaker this year) created a phony profile (Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn) on the internet and proceeded to social-engineered as many poor victims to accept “her” as a friend. The project ran for a month and it was completely published for research purposes only.

Among its many victims were

She scored connections with people in the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the CIO of the NSA, an intelligence director for the U.S. Marines, a chief of staff for the U.S. House of Representatives, and several Pentagon and DoD employees. The profiles also attracted defense contractors, such as Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, and Booz Allen Hamilton.

If that’s not impressive enough, I don’t know what is.

Full article here:  Dark Reading

I have return! Hahaha…

Well after a month-long void, I apologize with no posts. It’s been a crazy month with new job AND new home. But glad to know everything’s going well now. Just need to tie a few loose ends

Several articles I found interesting the late few days (no Kotaku/Facebook from work )

Software to detect gender based on what you browse? Men, go try this out: Browsing-determines-gender

The biggest stir-up in the crypto community! US’ newly founded Cyber Command has a new logo, and it has crypted code on it! And according to Wired magazine they’re actually challenging people to solve it. The only hint? It’s their mission statement. Wired Article – Cyber Command Code

The last isn’t really techno, I know, but it’s interesting what you can find in the Internet isn’t it? A comprehensive list of what is *assumed* to be the cause and/or prevention of cancer: Kill or Cure?

Is it really that bad?

Great article in Kotaku: Video Game Piracy, Another View

Oh wow, it’s been awhile! lol… sorry, but I was off for vacation for abit

Here’s a warmup of my return to the blog. Facebook’s email notification is sending the user’s IP address in it. Meaning, if somebody commented on your status and you get a notification email, that email will have the IP address of that person.

As seen here: Binary Intelligence

In summary, from the email, open the header source file and look for the x-facebook line. Copy and paste that line to an email tracer (such as this) and it can track the IP.

So much for privacy, Facebook…………

ps: Speaking of Facebook trend, here’s an interesting article on Wired: Facebook’s Gone Rogue

Text stuff of the day (and quite a few interesting ones at that) are as follows, ladies and gentlemen…

Victorinox apparently just announced that they will be launching a hacking event of hacking their latest device… an encrypted USB key in a Victorinox army knife – the Victorinox Secure Penknife. The winner will win £100,000 if they manage to crack it, and still get a free penknife if they failed anyway. The contest, unfortunately, will be limited to 24 very lucky people, but anyone is free to apply.

The penknife itself is a mixture of the true-and-told tough (and original!) Swiss Army knife, but also embed an encrypted and secure USB drive, that will require a fingerprint scan to open – which, if you failed to provide the correct fingerprint, will automatically notify the owner by email. Which, by the way, should the owner never replies back to it, will cause the deletion of the file within the drive. Never mind the contest, tell me where can I buy that thing!

Bit-Tech Article

Samsung Swipe – On other news, Samsung released an update to their Swipe-system for their mobile. For the unknown, this is a program that enables you to swipe around a touchscreen to type in your cellphone. But for more clarification, please feel free to watch the video of the device breaking a new world-record in the fastest text-message typing.

Gizmodo Article: Samsung Swipe

Real Science on Mass Effect 2. Last but certainly not least. Do you play Mass Effect 2? Do you also enjoy watching Discovery channel? Ever wondered how thin it is the separation between real science and science fiction in the game?

Well, Dr. Michio Kaku – a real nerdy (hey he pulls references to Star Trek and Star Wars, ok?) physicist who are also damn good at explaining complicated things into not-so-complicated brains – took a shot at explaining all of those. This is a seriously awesome short interview video if you’re into this stuff. Myself, for example,could not pause or stop watching this video mid-way at any point (except when the other dude is talking)

Source link: Kotaku Link

After testing a few more AV at work, I decided to share some of my results. The following are 2 brand of antivirus I’ve rarely heard, which both handily handed AVG-Free’s butt in a silver platter; ie. it scans more thoroughly and removes more effectivesly.

Avira Anti-Virus
Free version is very robust. Paid version has numerous version, tailored neatly to your requirements. Fileserver? Mailserver? even Proxyserver-specific AV? No problem. Decent price too.

MalwareBytes
Ok, so not exactly an anti-virus, but an anti-malware. Yes, there is a small difference (Microsoft Security Essential is an anti-malware). Though for most home users, the difference shouldn’t be obvious, and either would work fine.
Malware Bytes is a small company, and the free version doesn’t have real-time scanning, but at what it does – removing nasty high-level malwares – it does it extremely well. Not to mention speedy scanning time.

That’s all for now, but I’ll probably update this list more later in the future.

Update:
Avast Antivirus
This one is pretty nifty to block and maintain a healthy system. I’ve used the business version back then and it was very comprehensive and customizable, yet not exactly towards the lite end of the resource meter.
Their free version however, are quite capable of cleaning and securing most home users.

This time a full length featurette video

It really is quite impressive, regardless the lack of Copy and Paste

From: Endgadget Article

In order to pay some homage to my original Computer Engineering background, I have to share this great article by ArsTechnica on how robots think – Ars Technica article

While taking an example on DARPA mobile robots (which further relates personally to me as my final project in college was a robo-mouse), the article evolve on the nitty gritty detail on sensory input processing and its relation to the reaction. It also dwelve deeper into the logic algorithm of decision making process (probabilities and chance elimination formulas) as well as decision-action processing (that is, what exactly and how does one executes one’s decision); spiced with a little of marginal error correction logic.

I guess what intrigues me most is relating how a visual and other sensory inputs are treated by an artificial intelligence, with human reaction to similar inputs. Felt like we’re so close to inventing an AI as advanced as the soul, yet so far. Charming, really.

So in the follow-up of their highly succesfull OS (Win7 did pass with flying colours no matter which OS you’re coming from – at least according to the sales record), Microsoft decided to throw in a mobile OS as well. Updating their fairly infamous (in a negative way) WinMobile6 series (6.5 and 6.1 seems to be the most common used on smartphones) one version higher.

But with all the hype of iPhone, Android, and their manufacturer adopters, can Microsoft really (yet again) land a big, warm, and fluffy surprise?

Apparently, it looks like it can. Endgadget Article

The link above entails a few pictures and a very impressive video on a sample smartphone running WinMo7. But the biggest news is? WinPhone Marketplace. If you have an iPhone, think of this as iTunes. Yes, that’s right. This is where future WinMo7 users will be downloading user-developed applications, games, musics, and whatnots.

Only time will tell how succesful the Marketplace can be, but trust me, it will be the make-it-or-break-it point for WinMo7. Afterall, such is the case for the iPhone.

Oh yes, that is a Netflix application.

Update March 16th, 2010:

Of course, who am I kidding? After reading a little more into another WinMo7 article focused on its Enterprise functionalities, it’s obvious even the latest incarnation of Windows Mobile can’t compete to the professional requirements of an enterprise – leaving that (rather large) consumer market wedge (still) dominated by the Blackberry family.

Of course, that being said, there are still people who uses Blackberries yet never touch the email nor BBM functions…

Little tips and tricks for this morning is how to clean you hard-drive. For whatever reason.

For so many years, most majority of computer-users believe (fervently) that deleting a file from Recycle Bin in Windows (or pretty much any other Operating Systems I know) will forever obliterate that data to the furthest edge of the universe and beyond.

Until I showed them how easy it is to retrieve it under 5 minutes.

In a nutshell, the fact is when you delete a file in Windows, it only deletes the pointer of that file. But it leaves the actual data intact – until that exact space is either re-utilized or cleared. To fully understand that, you need to know the basic idea how file works. When you save a file in your drive, it creates a header/pointer where it stores all the information of that file – including where and how big that data of that file is being stored. When you delete a file, the system would simply either rewrite the header to say that the area where the data resided is now empty and free for the taking of any new files, or, delete the header completely. Neither, actually deletes the data. Thus, when you do feel the send a file into oblivion, there are extra steps you must follow and understand.

Due to the various type of hard-drives and operating systems out there, here are Gizmodo’s full article with more details on which tools and guides: Gizmodo article

On a different topic, BBC has shown how new format of drives may be working against Windows XP users. So if you’re on XP, and looking into adding extra storage to your computer, read up: BBC article

While Ars Technica goes into a little more in-depth regarding this issue: Ars Technica article

Interesting article by Wired. The layout alone is definitely one heck of a trip down memory lane for most people who remember those days.

Wired Article: 10 Years After

In other words; antivirus phish; a.k.a. virus (usually trojans) who disguised themselves as antivirus and urge you to install them by creating (usually) fake threats in your computer. For more info, read up here: Wikipedia 

The latest current threats for this type of attack are found online through your web-browser by mimicking an antivirus scanning page or your explorer window – making them looking completely legit and trick you to use them. For the latest updated list of these “bad-websites”, this is one of source I use and updates: MalwareURL 

Some example screenshot pictures are; 

Antivirus 2009 - a notorious rogue program malware

 How to avoid them? Basic rule of thumb: don’t just click and/or run anything you see that you don’t recognize. Especially in the Internet. I know that some of these scam attacks may look like something you would recognize, so just being extra careful wouldn’t hurt.

Install a good, reliable antivirus. Microsoft Security Essential is free and a fairly solid solution, although it may not be as complete as other. AVG antivirus has a free version that’s quite robust. McAfee, a well-known antivirus solution, has some free tools you can use. Last but not least, TrendMicro has a free tool called HijackThis (don’t worry, it’s a real antivirus!) that you can use to scan your computer online securely and on-the-fly. Very handy! 

Keep an eye out for non-recognizable/out of place layout in your computer. This means; when you see a windows explorer window, make sure the address bar actually points to the current view. Ie. when you see My Computer content on the viewing panel, it should say My Computer on the address bar – unlike the second screenshot example above where it says http://scan1.antivirus….
Another example is when you see a scanning antivirus program running, it shouldn’t have an Internet Explorer bar on the top – this could means it’s actually a website designed to look like an antivirus program. 

Don’t simply click Yes/OK/Next on messages that suddenly pops up on your screen, or notification to install any kind of program. Take the time to review it,  read about it, and/or ask around. Remember, it’s always better NOT to install a program you don’t know rather than installing a program that you THINK you know. 

A website designed to look completely like My Computer browser

On a more personal notes, this type of malware – rogue software – has claimed at least 3 PC securely located behind a firewall and numerous more outside the last few weeks. It’s on the rise, no surprise to their fairly high success rate. Some would even employ a real-life tech-support representative that infected user can chat with! Other reports show that affiliated companies of these rogue program developers can be paid for thousands of real dollars for distributing the programs and hosting them. Damages by infection are ranging from simple Windows error loop to whole systems being disabled to file corruption (deleted, and scrambled, so you can’t recover it). 

So when you think you’re safe and sound in the Internet… think again. Be safe!

Funny how both CTRLALTDEL and PennyArcade had similar comic today… maybe I missed some big announcement…. hmmm…

Happy Weekend!

Solar-powered cellphone? Yes please…

http://www.gsmarena.com/puma_phone_roars_at_the_mwc_sportsminded_and_eco_friendly-news-1459.php

http://pumaphone.com/