6 ways to access blocked websites

If you also feel stifled by the blocked websites then here are some ways to access blocked websites:

1. Become Anonymous: Use Proxy Websites

A proxy website becomes a moderator between the user and server site. The proxy website camouflages the blocked site from the ISPs and allows you to access blocked websites. To get a proxy website for any blocked site, just perform the Google search.

Eg: Facebook Proxy Server. In case, Facebook is blocked in your institution, or you can go to

http://www.spysurfing.com/
http://proxify.us/p/ and more…

2. Use VPN

VPN or Virtual Proxy Network allows you to connect your device to a secure connection to another network over the internet. VPN enables you to access blocked websites from your home network and puts your IP address in a land far away. You can also download the apps or open the sites blocked in your country.

Check out our How To set-up VPN on Android devices without the need of any software

3. Use IP Rather Than URL

The blocked website sometimes are stored as a list of URLs and using IP of the website might work in few of the cases. To get the IP address for any website, you do a ping domain.com command in Command Prompt.

Using IP is a simple way to access blocked websites in your region. However, if the website had hidden its IP too, then it won’t open with this method.

4. Change Network Proxy In Browsers

Your college or institute might be having more than one proxy for its network. So, it happens that some websites are restricted on one proxy, but accessible in another. So, you can give a try to proxy surfing to access blocked websites in your college.

Change the advanced settings of your Firefox browser and select the Manual Proxy. Put the bypass proxy under HTTP proxy.

5. Use Google Translate

Institutes or even countries sometimes don’t ban Google Translate. So, you can bypass the restriction by converting the blocked website into some other language that you may know. Try Google Translate and see for yourself. It is yet another simple way to access blocked websites.

6. Bypass via Extensions

If the websites that are blocked by your institute or office are dynamic in nature such as Facebook or YouTube, then should give a try to these extensions. Hola and ProxMate are some extensions that you can use to access blocked websites.

These are some of the most effective and easy to use methods to circumvent the censorship that has been put on your favorite websites. Let us know which one do you prefer to access blocked websites in your region.

 

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Top 10 sites to protect your online privacy

Online Privacy is one of the major concerns among the citizens today. It is no secret that companies and websites keep a check on your online habits and store your personal information (sometimes messages or emails). The information leaves you open to hackers and is sold to third parties including government.

Here’s a list of 10 websites and services to protect your online privacy and help you stay anonymous to some extent on the Internet.

 

1) TOR

The Onion Router, more famously known as TOR, is by far one of the best ways to protect your online privacy. TOR is a free software that directs the Internet traffic through more than 6,000 relays worldwide. TOR conceals your identity and encrypts your query, thus, giving you safe passage inside the world wide web.

TOR saves you from the direct cyber attack. You will be amazed to see the intensity of cyber attacks across the globe in the Norse Map taking place right now.

2) DuckDuckGo

DuckDuckGo is a privacy-focused search engine and since last two years has witnessed a whopping 600% growth, especially after the NSA leaks. DuckDuckGo goes by catchphrase of “the search engine that doesn’t track you”.

The website promotes strict online privacy measures and claims that it doesn’t collect information about its users, and neither sends your IP address while crawling the web. DuckDuckGo is the search engine you would want to prefer to protect your online privacy.

3) StartPage

Startpage is another private search engine that subroutes your queries to Google, through itself. The searches are seen from the StartPage’s servers and give you anonymity on Google. Just like DuckDuckGo, Startpage doesn’t monitor your IP address and provides you with enough online privacy.

4) MyPermissions

MyPermmission is an extension that tells you which of your apps are connected to your social media accounts such as Facebook or Google which can possibly track your online actions. Once known, you can revoke those permissions.

MyPermissions will also inform of such actions in case you install new apps, thus, helping you to protect your privacy online.

5) Hide My Ass

Hide My Ass is a paid VPN service that hides your real IP address and gives out one of its own. In this way, you stay protected, no matter which website you visit.

Hide My Ass also allows you to circumvent and gives access to the blocked websites. A definite thumbs up for this VPN service that gives you online privacy.

6) Express VPN

Express VPN brags of both the security and speed. Express VPN is SSL secured with 256-bit encryption and optimizes continuously to provide the users a super fast encrypted network.

Express VPN provides online privacy and secure surfing for $12.95 per month and an annual subscription of $99.95.

7) IP Vanish

Another paid VPN service provider that allows to surf the Internet anonymously and gives you access to the blocked websites for $77.99 per year subscription.

IP Vanish protects your identity through its encrypted channels, so comes in the list of ways to protect your online privacy.

8) Just Delete Me

Just Delete Me is a directory of direct links that helps you to erase all of your digital footprint by deleting your accounts from web services. The directory has hundreds of websites including social media sites like Facebook, messaging apps like Snapchat, and even Google.

If someday anxiety over online privacy gets to you, then remember Just Delete Me.

9) Buffered VPN

Buffered VPN is in the list of paid VPN services that protects your privacy by hiding your IP Address and allows you to overcome firewalls. You can use Buffered VPN for a secure browsing experience and protect your online privacy.

10) ToS;DR

Terms of Service; Didn’t Read is the service for you if are skeptical and fed up of all the terms and conditions that are provided for the simplest of the anonymity services. It helps you to understand the intricacies of all the T&C and tells you how the services use your data . ToS;DR saves you from false promises and tricks and helps you to safe and protect your online privacy.

 

 

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Now you can stream apps with google

Google’s push to organize the world’s information has recently been focused on figuring out the best way to index mobile apps. Today, the company started indexing Android apps that don’t have matching web content, and even began experimenting with letting users stream apps that they don’t have installed.

Google has been testing various levels of app indexing for years, with features showing up as early as December 2013. The company typically begins with Android, and then considers expanding functionality to iOS. This time is no different: Both of these new features are only available on Google’s mobile operating system.

Until now, Google has only indexed apps that have matching web content, meaning you could always find a corresponding website with the same information. Now, the company is going after content that lives primarily in apps (it doesn’t exist online or it provides a poor user experience). Today’s debut begins with just nine apps: Hotel Tonight, Weather, Chimani, Gormey, My Horoscope, Visual Anatomy Free, Useful Knots, Daily Horoscope, and New York Subway.

“We want to make sure users are engaging with this app-only content” and that “the streaming experience works well,” Rajan Patel, Google’s director of mobile search, told VentureBeat. “If users enjoy it, and we see they’re using it, we will expand the scope.”

Additionally, if you don’t have a given app installed, Google will now let you stream content — as long as you’re on a reliable Wi-Fi connection. That means you don’t have to install the app to get the information you’re looking for.

In fact, you can even accomplish tasks like booking a hotel room without installing the app. When these apps show up in search results, they are accompanied with a Stream button. Tapping it takes you into a streamed version that you can interact with as if you had the app on your phone. Android Lollipop is required, tablets are not yet supported, and the search has to be conducted through Google (streaming won’t work through Google’s mobile site).

But how does the feature work? Well, the streaming technology is built “at least in part” into the Google app. But Google also can’t just stream any app.

“These apps are running on virtual machines on Google Cloud Platform, using the same technology as the Google Cloud Test Lab,” a Google spokesperson told VentureBeat. “It’s similar to a streamed video, but interactive, with swipe, tap, etc. signals being sent to the streamed app in essentially real time. We are experimenting with a few apps initially to get the user experience right, but we are looking to scale to more apps soon.”

This is a big play from Google, as it could fundamentally change how searching for in-app content works on mobile devices. Right now, Google serves up the app if you have it installed, possibly even the specific section with what you’re looking for. If you don’t have the app installed, Google gives you the corresponding mobile webpage. Going forward, Google will give you the app whether you have it installed (it just launches) or not (it just streams).

In its announcement today, Google also shared it now has over 100 billion deep links into apps in its search index. These include popular apps like Facebook, Instagram, Airbnb, and Pinterest. In fact, over 40 percent of Google searches on Android now surface app content.

Google is well aware that search has evolved from simply entering queries into a desktop browser. “We’re not thinking about desktop at all right now, in terms of experience,” Patel explained. This is all about mobile.

“Today, you’re more likely to be searching on your mobile device, and the best answers may be buried in an app … perhaps one that you don’t even have installed yet,” the company acknowledged.

And that’s exactly why Google is investing in indexing apps: The company wants all the world’s information, wherever it resides.

 

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Top 10 Evil Ways to Use Technology

Like other powerful tools, technology can be used for great good or for great evil. Learn how people use technology for wrongdoing so you can protect yourself—or use their tricks to actually do good. Here are the top 10 “evil” ways you can use technology.

 

10. Spoof Caller ID

Pranksters and scammers use caller ID spoofing to take advantage of us—in common telephone scams, for example, where “Microsoft” calls to warn you your computer has a virus and they’ll help you fix it (for a fee). There are legitimate reasons why you might want to make your phone number show up differently on caller ID (e.g., place a call to a young kid as Santa or Cinderella), and there are lots of spoofing apps and services to help you do this.

9. Uncover Blurred Information in Photos

People blur out the information in photos to make sure sensitive information isn’t readable to others, but it turns out this strategy isn’t that secure—particularly when you’re trying to hide numbers. The takeaway: Don’t use simple mosaics to blur your image.

8. Create a USB Password Stealer

It’s bad enough that major password leaks happen so often, hackers can steal our passwords with just a USB flash drive and a single script, grabbing our cache of passwords stored in our browser and elsewhere. You might want to test your vulnerability to this trick yourself, but either way, to protect yourself, remember the security basics: always have physical control over your computer, use a secure password manager and turn on two-factor authentication.

7. Get into a Private BitTorrent Tracker or Usenet Indexer

Private trackers and usenet indexers are great communities, but they take dedication and they’re hard to get into. While some of our strategies for getting into one aren’t necessarily “evil,” you’ll be working your way into exclusive private file sharing communities.

6. Spoof an Email Address

Caller ID isn’t the only thing spammers spoof. If you’ve ever gotten a strange, spammy email from a friend—or, worse, your email account just spammed all of your contacts—you know how annoying spoofed emails can be. Here’s how data thieves spoof email addresses to phish for information or con us into sending money to Nigerian princes. If you think you’ve been impersonated, you’ll need to take some advanced steps to secure your account.

5. Snoop on Someone’s Phone or Computer Without Them Knowing

Is your company monitoring you? Possibly. The NSA? Your ISP? Yeah. But it’s pretty easy too for a friend or family member to dig into your phone or computer without you knowing—whether by gaining physical access to your phone or computer or using remote monitoring tools. Parents might snoop on their kids, significant others might snoop on their partners out of insecurity or suspicion, whatever the reason, covering those snooping tracks isn’t that hard. If you think you might be the one being snooped on, look for signs any of those stealthy steps weren’t followed. If you share a computer with someone else, learn how you can still protect your privacy with this guide.

4. Crack a Wi-Fi Password

WEP passwords are too easy to crack with tools like BackTrack making it super simple to get into a WEP-”protected” router. That’s why everyone recommends using WPA—or really, WPA2, the latest encryption standard.WPA can be cracked too, though! That is, if your router has WPS turned on. So disable WPS if you can or try open-source router firmware like DD-WRT, which doesn’t support WPS.

3. Hack a Wi-Fi Network

Why would someone want to steal your router’s password? Besides stealing your Wi-Fi bandwidth, to spy on everything going on over your network, of course. It’s amazing the DIY creations hackers can use to sniff out network packets. Fake routers and networks, created with the help of Kali Linux, for example, can be used to trick machines into connecting, and then eavesdrop on network communications. (Yes, there’s a lot of spoofing going on in this article!) This is a good time to remind you to check your router’s settings—especially these top security settings.

2. Sniff Out Passwords and Cookies

This is somewhat related to hacking a Wi-Fi network, but it’s more about the dangers of using public Wi-Fi. It’s really easy for hackers to steal your logins and snoop on your browsing session, when the network is not secure or you’re connecting to sites that don’t use HTTPS. To protect yourself, your best bet is to use a VPN whenever you’re using public Wi-Fi or follow some of these other safety precautions.

1. Break into a Computer

Finally, you might shudder to know it’s pretty easy to break into a computer, whether it’s a Windows PC or a Mac—even if your computer is password protected. If your computer is encrypted, however, such as with BitLocker (for Windows) or FileVault (on Mac), you’ll be protected from some of the more common methods hackers use to steal data from a computer. You’ll also want to make sure you have a very strong, unique password for your computer login. If you get locked out of your computer, however, and forgot your password, well, now you know how to get back in.

 

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The 5 Most Infamous Software Bugs in History

In the digital era, computer bugs can affect our lives, the economy of a nation and even the well-functioning of society in general. As the internet of things gradually invades all aspects of our environment, the importance of identifying and preventing computer bugs grows exponentially.

These are 5 infamous software bugs that went down in history:

1 – The “Moth-er” of all bugs

After finding a moth inside the Harvard Mark II computer on September 9th, 1947 at 3:45 p.m., Grace Murray Hopper logged the first computer bug in her log book. She wrote the time and the sentence: “First actual case of bug being found”. Nowadays, the term “bug” in computer science is not taken literally, of course. We use it to talk about a flaw or failure in a computer program that causes it to produce an unexpected result or crash.

You may already be familiar with this story, but is it really true…?

2 – The Y2K bug

In the last century, software developers had never thought that their code and creations would survive into the new millennium. For this reason, many assumed that writing “19” before the variable “year” was an unnecessary waste of memory. Most decided to omit these two digits.

All good until the turn of the century: the closer we got December 31st, 1999,  the more we started worrying about the fact that computer systems in New Year’s Eve would update their clock to January 1st, 1900 instead of 2000 and, because of this, major disasters would be unleashed and it would be the end of mankind.

However, we are still here to tell the tale: nuclear missiles were not fired on their own, planes did not fall from the sky and banks did not lose all the information about their clients’ savings.

The Y2K bug was real, nevertheless. Billions of dollars were spent in order to upgrade computer systems worldwide. Also, some small incidents were reported: In Spain, some parking meters failed. The French meteorological institute published on its website the weather for January 1st 19100 and in Australia, some bus-ticket validation machines crashed.

3 – The Dhahran Missile

In February 1991 (First Gulf War), an Iraqi missile hit the US base of Dhahran in Saudi Arabia, killing 28 American soldiers.

Following an investigation, it was determined that the base’s antiballistic system failed to launch because of a computer bug: the Patriot missile battery, whose role is to detect and intercept enemy missiles by “crashing” against them in mid-air, had been running for 100 hours straight. After every hour, the internal clock drifted by milliseconds and that had a huge impact on the system (a delay of  ⅓ of a second after 100 hours).

For a person, 0.33 seconds is an infinitesimal amount; but for a radar that tries to track anAl Hussein Scud missile –  that reaches Mach 4.2 (1.5 km per second / 0.88 miles per second ), this “micro-delay” translates into a “600 meter” error. In the case of the Dhahran incident, the radar first identified an object in the sky but didn’t manage to track it due to the error, and thus, the missile didn’t launch itself.

 

4 – Feet or meters? The Mars Climate Orbiter nav bug

The Mars Climate Orbiter was launched in 1998 with the goal of studying climate on Mars, although it never managed to fulfill its mission.

After traveling through space for several months, the probe was destroyed because of a navigation error: teams who controlled the probe from Earth used parameters in imperial units meanwhile the software calculations were using the metric system. These miscalculations had an impact on the flight path. In the end, the probe was destroyed because of friction with the Martian atmosphere (an error of almost 100 km).

5 – Too many digits for Ariane 5

When coding, a developer has to define variables the program will use and also the size those variables will take in the computer’s memory. The amount of memory required by the variable is expressed in bits.

A 16 bits variable can have a value of −32.768 to 32.767.

On the other hand, a 64 bits variable can have a value of −9.223.372.036.854.775.808 to 9.223.372.036.854.775.807 (that’s almost an infinity of options).

On June 4th, 1996 and only 30 seconds after the launch, the Ariane 5 rocket began to disintegrate slowly until its final explosion. Simulations with a similiar flight system and the same conditions revealed that in the rocket’s software (which came from Ariane 4), a 64-bit variable with decimals was transformed into a 16-bit variable without decimals.

These variables, taking different sizes in memory, triggered a series of bugs that affected all the on-board computers and hardware, paralyzing the entire ship and triggering its self-destruct sequence.

 

 

 

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Coinbase launches the first ever Bitcoin debit card

Today Coinbase announced a new Bitcoin debit card that will allow U.S. users to pay with Bitcoin anywhere Visa is accepted.

The new Bitcoin card is the result of a partnership with Shift Payments, a Y Combinator-backed startup that has been working on a cryptocurrency credit card for well over a year. Shift teamed up with Visa on this new card, giving card users the ability to pay with Bitcoin at 38 million merchant locations.

The card will be available to Bitcoin owners in 24 states in the U.S. and can be used to make purchases both at physical retailers and online. To get the card, Coinbase users need to connect their account to the Shift payments system, provide an address, and pay a $10 card-issuing fee (paid for with Bitcoin, of course).

For the Bitcoin ecosystem, the Shift Card marks a major step forward, giving Bitcoin owners more opportunity to spend their Bitcoin easily.

Bitcoin is a digital-only currency allegedly developed by someone named Satoshi Nakamoto. It is a democratized currency, meaning it is regulated by a community of people rather than a government. It has a transparent transaction network maintained by a group of people called miners that earn Bitcoin in exchange for their work. Miners process Bitcoin transactions and then post them to a public ledger called the blockchain. The system relies on a community to ensure that money in the system is accounted for and tracked, instead of using a private institution like a bank.

An increasing number of businesses both large and small have begun accepting Bitcoin, including PayPal, Microsoft, Reddit, Overstock, and Amazon. Bitpay and Coinbase both provide solutions for accepting cryptocurrency, as do a few smaller players. For example, the San Francisco, California-based startup Snaps set up area merchants with point-of-sale systems that accept Bitcoin last holiday season. But these systems haven’t really encouraged Bitcoin owners to pay with Bitcoin at stores.

In this way, the Shift Card could be a game changer. It takes an existing behavior — swiping a credit card — and applies it to a totally new form of currency. It may be somewhat counterintuitive, but it is exactly the kind of innovation that Bitcoin needs in order to become more widely used.

Shift Card holders will be subject to some restrictions. For instance, users won’t be able to spend more than $1,000 a day, and ATM withdrawals from a Coinbase account will be limited to $200 a day. However, if you link the card to a Dwolla account, you can withdraw up to $500 daily.

Transactions are free, but you’ll pay between $2.50 and $3.00 when you take money out at an ATM. International transactions incur a 3 percent charge.

The Shift Card is available to residents in Alabama, Arizona, Delaware, Georgia, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Maine, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, North Carolina, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Puerto Rico, South Dakota, Texas, Vermont, Washington, Washington D.C., and West Virginia, and in limited testing in California.

 

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Top 10 Well Known Hacking Groups Of All Time

Like the animals, hackers also hack their prey in groups. Sometimes these groups become famous for perceived good deeds like hacking ISIS websites done by Anonymous but most of the time these hacker groups operate against the law. Some of the hacker groups have since disbanded after being in public eye. The prime example of infamous hackers group is Lizard Squad. They DDoSed the PlayStation and Xbox servers right during the time of Christmas weekend earning them many villains.

Today we are listing top such 10 most notorious hackers of all time.

1. Lizard Squad

The DDoS attack on Facebook that lowered the popular social media network as well the cyber attacks on Malaysia Airlines website that directed visitors to a page which read “404 – plane not found,” were carried out by the Lizard Squad. While Facebook refused to accept being hacked, Malaysia Airlines stated that their domain had been temporarily redirected elsewhere and that they had not been hacked. Lizard Squad has also hacked Microsoft and Sony.

The intentions of Lizard Squad look dark and gloomy due to the diverse history of their work. They are not totally computer hackers as most of the hack they do is comedy. The group is responsible for a high-profile hack of Microsoft Xbox Live and Sony’s Playstation Network. In August 2014, the group posted the ISIS flag on Sony’s servers and made other indirect references to the “cyber caliphate.” The group was arrested by the authorities in the U.S. and England after the Xbox and Playstation hacks.

2. Syrian Electronic Army

The Syrian Electronic Army claims to target political opposition groups and claims to support the Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. It calls itself “a group of enthusiastic Syrian youths who could not stay passive towards the massive distortion of facts about the recent uprising in Syria”.

It becomes involved in the use of malware, phishing, defacement, spamming, and denial of service (DDoS) attacks with often posting the Syrian flag on a victim’s website. Some have even assumed as a fact that the group is connected with the Syrian state. The group have targeted the Facebook pages and Twitter accounts of President Barack Obama and French President Nicolas Sarkozy, as well as technology companies and news organizations. Their tone is “serious and political to ironic and humorous.”

3. LulzSec

After the HBGary Federal hack of 2011, LulzSec – Lulz Security abbreviated – formed as an Anonymous spinoff. It’s slogan was “Laughing at your security since 2011.” The group announced itself with a hack against Fox.com, then Sony Pictures in 2011. The group took the CIA website offline.

LulzSec had become well known for ridiculing its victims after an attack, which made the analysts compare them to the hacks to internet pranks. In June 2011, a ‘50 days of Lulz’ statement announced that the group had fallen out. However, on July 18, the News Corporation was hacked by the group, who had posted false news about the death of Rupert Murdoch.

In 2012, the LulzSec members were arrested by the FBI after the group’s leader, Sabu, turned them in. Prosecutor Sandip Patel said the group thought of themselves as “latter-day pirates.”

4. Anonymous

“We are Anonymous. We are Legion. We do not forgive. We do not forgive…. Expect us.”

Known most for its hacking and Guy Fawkes masks, Anonymous is a decentralized open online creation group. Reports conceive that Anonymous is made up of thousands of “hacktivists.” The group has compromised religious, corporate and government websites.

The group has declared war on Scientology and hacked the Pentagon. In 2012’s Operation Payback, they also attacked MasterCard, Visa and PayPal for refusing to process payments to WikiLeaks, which in turn led WikiLeaks to choose the cryptocurrency Bitcoin. Anonymous supported Occupy Wall Street and hacked the New York Stock Exchange website in 2011.

For being involved in Anonymous, individuals have been arrested in the U.S., UK, Netherlands, Australia, Spain, and Turkey.

5. The Level Seven Crew

Rumored to be encouraged by the seventh level of hell from Dante’s Inferno, ‘the violent’ level, this hacking group hacked 60 high profile computer systems (NASA, The First American National Bank, Sheraton Hotels) in 1999. They also hacked into the US Embassy in China’s website. However, this group broke up and stopped functioning in 2000.

6. Network Crack Program Hacker (NCPH) Group

It was alleged that the NCPH Group was formed in China in 1994, whose leader Tan Dailin was apparently working for the Chinese army. It is believed that the People’s Liberation Army was funded by the NCPH. The group appears to be based out of Zigon in Sichuan Province.

7. Chaos Computer Club (CCC)

The mission of the Chaos Computer Club is to uncover the security flaws, which basically does not only depend upon illegal activities. It was founded in Berlin during the early 1980s and is one of the largest European hacking groups. The group made its point after they used the Bildschirmtext page to steal 134,000 Deutsch Marks from a Hamburg bank, only to send the money back after having completed its mission the next day, which was to expose a security flaw.

Early CCC member Andy Müller-Maguhn in an interview with OWNI stated: “we needed a lot of legal experts to advise us what we could or could not hack, and to help us distinguish between legal activities and grey areas of legality”. The group’s kindly approach has allowed the CCC to become “an accepted and recognized entity because it has worked to educate the public about technology since the 1980s,” Müller-Maguhn added. The group’s most recent focus has been on the mass surveillance complex, in order to fit in a German hacker ring. CCC Member Falk Garbsch stated:

There have to be consequences. The work of intelligence services has to be reviewed – as does their right to exist. If necessary, their aims and methods will have to be redefined. …We have to think about how these [shared]data are processed and where they can be allowed to resurface. And this is not just the challenge for 2015, but for the next 10 years.

The group has strongly objected French nuclear tests, made full use of COMP128 encryption algorithm of a GSM customer card, stole money on live TV via Microsoft’s ActiveX; and examined the German federal government’s own malware. The group’s press release on the topic reads:

“The malware can not only siphon away intimate data but also offers a remote control or backdoor functionality for uploading and executing arbitrary other programs. Significant design and implementation flaws make all of the functionality available to anyone on the internet.”

The CCC may have characteristics of a Marxist, after being caught selling source code from U.S. corporations and governments to the Soviet Union’s secret police KGB.

8. globalHell

globalHell was founded by street-gang member Patrick Gregory. Data on 115 websites were reportedly destroyed by the group charging millions in damages. In order to get away from street gang life, Gregory had turned to computer. His crew of hackers behaved basically the same as a street gang. “global hell will not die” was reportedly written by the group on the United States Army’s website. Gregory confessed in court to causing $2.5 million in hacking damages.

9. Iran’s Tarh Andishan

Looks like the Tarh Andishan wants to control the world’s web-based systems. Mostly based in Tehran, Iran, the group is approximated to have 20 members. A talented hacker group, Tarh Andishan looks like grew out of a Stuxnet worm virus, which Iran claimed the US and Israel had created.

The Iranian government doubled-down on its cyber warfare. The group uses self-propagating software, backdoors, SQL injection, systems, and other techniques. The group is best known for one of the attacks called “Operation Cleaver.” This hacker group has apparently hacked security systems and airline gates. Most findings were not taken into consideration due to the “grave risk to the physical safety of the world” the group reportedly poses, according to the report.

10. TeaMp0isoN:

A 16-year-old hacker with a pseudonym TriCk started this group in 2010. TeaMp0isoN hacked into Facebook, NATO, the English Defense League, including Tony Blair’s email account. The group broke up and stopped functioning in 2012. However, in 2015, the group rebranded itself as a white-hat computer security research group.

There are several other hacking groups who may be more deadlier than the above. We have listed only those hacker groups who have consistently been able to be in public eye due to their hacking exploits.

source:TechWorm

You can list the hacker groups which you think should have been included in the top 10 list, in the comments below.

See what google does for new search queries

Most people don’t notice when Google updates its search engine with new algorithms. But in order to help users sift through the billions of sites on the Web (with 822,240 new ones added each day), the company needs to keep improving its capabilities.

Bloomberg reports that over the past few months, Google has been testing an AI-based system called RankBrain to help parse users’ queries, especially those that the search engine has never encountered before.

Of the millions of queries it receives each second, about 15 percent of them are completely new to Google. RankBrain helps the search engine better understand these ambiguous queries, such as, “What’s the title of the consumer at the highest level of a food chain?” so it can serve up useful results.

It works by embedding written language into mathematical entities that the search engine can make sense of. It also guesses which words and phrases are similar in meaning to each other so it can help simplify queries for Google to look up.

Greg Corrado, a senior research scientist at Google said that of the hundreds of ‘signals’ that go into shaping a search algorithm, RankBrain has quickly become the third most important one in contributing to the result of a search query.

When the company’s search engineers who work on said algorithms were asked to look over a few pages and predict which ones Google would rank highly in search results, they managed to guess correctly 70 percent of the time. RankBrain’s success rate was 10 percent higher.

The use of artificial intelligence in search signals how software and services will be built in the future. Implementing machine learning allows companies to understand copious amounts of data to serve a global user base.

But these powerful technologies need a lot of work before they’re useful to companies and users. RankBrain was in the works for a year before the company began testing it with a dozen users and was then rolled out across all of Google Search.

Corrado notes, “Machine learning isn’t just a magic syrup that you pour onto a problem and it makes it better. It took a lot of thought and care in order to build something that we really thought was worth doing.”

 

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Most expensive domain names of all time

It is a known fact that people create Website and then sell them for money. People also purchase exclusive Domain names and later sell them for a huge lump sum. There is a lot of money in Website flipping and Domain flipping and some people really make good money in this business.

People usually would buy the domains with a vision that it will fetch good value and thus this is a sort of investment for some who are involved in this business. What you need to do is, purchase a website or domain with some exclusive name and then wait for some time till it gains popularity or till you get some good buyer.

This article brings to its readers the Top 20 most expensive million dollar Domain names of all the time which have been sold till date. Surprisingly some of these sites were sitting for almost two decades and have been purchased recently; besides it was also found that all these sites fall in the ‘.com’ category. It was also found that gambling and sex related domains are the ones which have fetched one of the best prices!

VacationRentals.com :

Sold for $35 million and Year: 2007: The new owner of this website is Brain Sharples, CEO of HomeAway. Sharples confirmed he purchased the domain because he did not want Expedia, competitor of HomeAway to acquire it.

PrivateJet.com:

Sold for $ 30.18 million and Year: Feb 2012: Nations Luxury Transportation, LLC (Nations) acquired the domain name http://www.PrivateJet.com, from Don’t Look Media.com which is a leading intellectual property holding firm.

Insure.com:

Sold for $ 16 million and Year: 2009: The domain name was purchased by marketing firm QuinStreet. It was the second highest deal of all times and this record was broken by PrivateJet.com.

Sex.com:

Sold for $13 million and Year: Oct 2010: One of the first domains related to porn industry to be sold was Sex.com. Due to this high value transaction Sex.com also entered the Guinness Book of World Records. Escom LLc, sold it to Clover Holdings Ltd, as it had gone bankrupt. Being linked to ‘sex’ the domain is just doing well and is one of the most searched words on the search engines!

Fund.com:

Sold for $9.9 million and Year: 2008: Major purpose of this domain is financial service. Clek Media brokered a deal and it seems the domain was purchased by a company known as Fund.com, in the year 2008. However, after this all cash deal, the company seems ran in a lot of trouble and declared most of its financials unreliable in 2009. As of now if one checks the site it displays a white background with a phrase: “Please come back later to check FUND.com”. The domain thus is not live and there is no idea if the owner is waiting to resell the domain.

Porn.com:

Sold for $9.5 million and Year: 2007: During the time of sale, this sale was a biggest all-cash transaction for domain name and the next to Sex.com. The domain was purchased by MXN Limited and Moniker helped to sell this domain. Needless to say the domain is just flourishing and this is another domain related to porn and most searched in the search engines.

Fb.com:

Sold for $8.5 million and Year: Nov 2010: Fb.com was purchased by Facebook from American Farm Bureau Federation. Presently, the domain has been redirected to http://www.facebook.com.

Porno.com:

Sold for $8.9 million and Year: Feb 2015: Rick Schwartz, the ‘Domain King’ had bought the website from a college kid in 1997 for mere$42,000. Surprisingly, the kid had snagged the name for $5,000 just a week before. It seems the site earned more than $20 million in all, initially it earned over $10 million via parking and redirects without every providing actual adult content, as explained by Schwartz. The buyer of the site was a company in Prague that also owns Swingers.com and PornoTv.com.

Z.com:

Sold for $6.8 million and Year: Nov 2014:  The domain was owned by Nissan for its Z series of cars and then it was sold to Japanese domain biz GMO registry. Z.com was sold for $6.8m (£4.3m, 800m yen) thus placing it in the top ten of all time domain sales. Currently, there exists only three single character domain names and Z.com is one of these in the .com space.

Diamond.com:

Sold for $7.5 million and Year: 2006: Currently, the domain is in use and acts as an online shopping site for diamonds. This shows why the buyer paid a huge amount for the domain name, well he is actually using the site to sell the precious stones!

Casino.com:

Sold for $5.5 million and Year: 2007: The domain was purchased by Mansion Limited of Gibraltar and has proved to be a great investment for the new owner.

Slots.com:

Sold for $5.5 million and Year: 2010: The site was purchased by a Russian online gaming site known as Bodog who also created new game on this domain. Originally the domain name was registered way back in 1995 and is being used as an online gambling portal. Seller’s identity was not disclosed.

Toys.com:

Sold for $5.1 million and Year: 2009: Initially as a part of bankruptcy court proceedings the site was sold for $1.25 million. After some days the site was put up for auction and then Toys R Us surprised everyone when it was able to shell out $5.1 million.

Clothes.com:

Sold for $5 million and Year: 2008: Zappos, a shoe company bought the domain Clothes.com. Now, both Zappos and Clothes.com are owned by Amazon and Clothes.com still directs users to Zappos’s apparel selection.

Medicare.com: 

Sold for $4.8 million and Year: May 2014: As per Domain names sales report, the domain Medicare.com has been bought by eHeathInsurance.com. Further, the company has paid $4.3 million in cash and $300,000 in debt as per the reports.

IG.com:

Sold for $4.7 million and Year: Sep 2013: The domain was earlier owned by Brazil search engine iG and was purchased by London’s IG Group. Igloo/NetNames helped to sell this domain.

Icloud.com:

Sold for $4.5 million and Year: 2011: After acquiring the ‘iphone.com’ domain Apple was searching for all the domains with prefix “i” and ultimately it acquired this domain. Though for Apple this deal seems to be sort of peanuts!

Whisky.com: 

Sold for $3.1 million and Year: March 2014: The domain was purchased way back in March 1995 by Michael Castello. As per Castello he had registered it for free! He also wrote in DN Journal: “I always liked Scotch whisky, but the real reason I registered Whisky.com was because of the Whisky a Go Go night club in Hollywood. I always enjoyed ‘The Whisky’, with its musical heritage and scene where the likes of The Doors and Janis Joplin played. Years later, I even offered Whisky.com to the owner’s son and he told me he didn’t need it since they already registered WhiskyaGoGo.com. That rejection would prove to be good for me.” Finally in 2014, Whisky.com was sold by Castello Cities Internet Network in a domain-only sale.

MI.com: 

Sold for $3.6 million and Year: Apr 2014: Xiaomi, the Chinese smartphone maker purchased this domain through a private sale. This was one of the most expensive purchases by a Chinese Internet company. Xiaomi contemplates to use this as their brand name as it is much easier to remember.

Candy.com:

Sold for $3 million and Year: 2009: The owner of this domain, Rick Schwartz sold Candy.com to G&J Holdings for an amount of $3 million in 2009. Greg Balestrieri and Joe Melville own the G&J Holdings, a candy company. The cousins wanted a simple domain which could provide easy access to sugary sweets online and hence they purchased this domain.

 

 

These are just Top 20 domain names given here, there are many others in the list which can be found in the DN Journal.

 

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The Top Hacker Tools you need to know!!!

Every task requires a good set of tools.This because having right tools in hand one can save much of its energy and time.In the world of Cyber Hacking (“Cyber Security” formally) there are millions of tools which are available on the Internet either as Freewares or as Sharewares.

If you are security researcher, pentester or a system admin, you need to have this on your PCs/laptops to find the vulnerabilities and plug them. Concise Courses conducted an online poll to determine top ten hacking tools out of some of the famous ones. Here is the list which came out the winner on the poll.

1. Nmap:  Network Mapper

Abbreviated as nmap is a versatile tool for Network Security, plus it is free and open source.It  is largely used by network administrators for network discovery and security auditing. System admins use nmap for network inventory, determining open ports, managing service upgrade schedules, and monitoring host(A term used for “a computer on a network”) or service uptime. The tool uses raw IP packets in many creative ways to determine what hosts are available on the network, what services (application name and version) they offer,which type of protocols are being used for providing the services,what operating systems (and OS versions and possible patches) and what type and version of packet filters/ firewalls are being used by the target.

2. Metasploit:

A tool for exploiting (Utilising network weakness for making a “backdoor”) vulnerabilities (Weak Points) on Network. This tool is neither free nor open source. But when it comes to features offered it deserves the price it claims. The Metasploit Project is a hugely popular pentesting (penetration testing) or hacking tool that is used by cybersecurity professionals and ethical hackers. Metasploit is essentially a computer security project that supplies information about known security vulnerabilities and helps to formulate penetration testing and IDS testing.

3. Cain and Abel:

Cain & Abel is a password recovery tool that is mostly used for Microsoft Operating Systems. This popular hacking tool allows the user to seek the recovery of various kind of passwords by sniffing the network(capturing some of the data packets), cracking encrypted passwords using Dictionary, Brute-Force(Generation of hashes out of words and then comparison of encrypted hash with the generated one,this method takes less time than dictionary attack method) and Cryptanalysis attacks. Cain, as it is often referred to, can also record VoIP(Voice over IP protocol,used for making calls over using internet) conversations, decode hashed scrambled passwords, recover wireless network keys and more.It can crack various types of hashes including NTLM,MD2,MD5,SHA-1,SHA-2 and many more.These functionalities make Cain and Abel one of the best password recovery tool.

4. Angry IP Scanner: 

Angry IP Scanner, also known as ‘ipscan’ is a freely available (open-source and cross-platform) hacking network scanner that is both fast and easy to use. The main purpose of this hacking tool is to scan IP addresses and ports to find open doors and ports. Worth noting that Angry IP Scanner also has a bunch of other uses as well. Common users of this hacking tool include network administrators and system engineers.

5.John The Ripper: 

John the Ripper is a popular password cracking pentesting tool that is most commonly used to perform dictionary attacks. John the Ripper takes text string samples (from a text file, referred to as a wordlist, containing popular and complex words found in a dictionary or real passwords cracked before), encrypting it in the same way as the password being cracked (including both the encryption algorithm and key), and comparing the output to the encrypted string. This tool can also be used to perform a variety of alterations to dictionary attacks.Including Brute Force and Rainbow attacks.

6. THC Hydra:

Although often considered as yet another password cracker, THC Hydra is hugely popular and has a very active and experienced development team. Essentially THC Hydra is a fast and stable Network Login Hacking Tool that will use dictionary or brute-force attacks to try various password and login combinations against an log in page. This hacking tool supports a wide set of protocols including Mail (POP3, IMAP, etc.), Databases, LDAP(Lightweight Directory Access Protocol),SMB, VNC, and SSH(Secure Shell,used by VPN Softwares).

7. Burp Suite:

A pentesting tool,Burp Suite has several features that can help the penetration tester or ethical hacker. Two commonly used applications used within this tool include the ‘Burp Suite Spider’ which can enumerate and map out the various pages and parameters of a web site by examining cookies and initiates connections with these web applications, and the ‘Intruder’ which performs automated attacks on web applications.

8. Nessus Remote Security Scanner

Recently went closed source, but is still essentially free. Works with a client-server framework. Nessus is the worlds Nessus Remote Security Scanner most popular vulnerability scanner used in over 75,000 organizations world-wide. Many of the worlds largest organizations are realizing significant cost savings by using Nessus to audit business-critical enterprise devices and applications. (This tool is not in the Concise list)

9. Ettercap:

Ettercap has a huge following and is widely used by cyber security professionals. Ettercap works by placing the user’s network interface into promiscuous mode and by ARP poisoning(ARP : Address resolution protocol is used to determine a host’s MAC address (address of its Network Interface Card) by knowing its IP address. ARP poisoning is a process where a hacker gives wrong information of either its MAC or IP address to the network.) the target machines, i.e. facilitating a ‘Man In The Middle’ or MITM attack. Once successful Ettercap (and the hacker) can deploy various attacks on the victims. A popular feature about Ettercap is its’ ability to support various plugins.

10. Wapiti:

Wapiti has a very loyal following. As a pentesting tool (or framework) Wapiti is able to scan and detect hundreds of possible vulnerabilities. Essentially this Multi Purpose Hacker Tools can audit the security of web applications by performing “black-box” scans, i.e. it does not study the source code of the application but will scan the HTML pages of the application seeking scripts and forms where it can inject data.

 

source: Techworm,Concise

 

If you have any favorite tool of your own which we have not mentioned in the article, kindly mention it in the comments so that we can include it in our next list.