John McAfee offers to Unlock Killer's iPhone for FBI

John McAfee to Break the Encryption on iPhone of Killer Syed Farook

John McAfee the creator of anti-virus software has stated that he would break the encryption on iPhone which tends to belong to San Bernardino killer Syed Farook. He made the offer in an article to FBI which was published by Business Insider. Apple had declined to abide with the court order asking it to unlock the device in-between opinion on whether the firm should be compelled in doing so.

Mr McAfee stated that he together with his team would undertake the task `with no charge’. The offer came up while Mr McAfee continued his campaign as a US presidential candidate for the Libertarian Party. He had claimed in his article that it would take them around three weeks. Graham Cluley, security expert had informed BBC that he was doubtful about Mr McAfee’s claim.

He stated that the iPhone is notoriously difficult to hack when compared to the other devices. Mr Cluley, for instance, had doubts on Mr McAfee’s idea that he could use `social engineering’ to work out the pass-code on the locked iPhone of Farook. It is a procedure wherein the hackers attempt to find out login identifications by deceiving people in disclosing them.

Back Door – iPhones Susceptible to Hacking

Mr Cluley said that `in a nutshell, dead men tell no tales. Good luck to Mr AcAfee trying to socially engineer a corpse in revealing its pass-code’ He added that the FBI is not interested anyway, they want to set a pattern that there should not be locks, they cannot break’. Mr McAfee, in his article had said that he was keen in unlocking the device since he did not want Apple to be forced in implementing a `back door’, a method wherein security services could access data on encrypted devices.

Tim Cook, chief executive of Apple had earlier commented in a statement that the firm did not want to co-operate. He discussed that introducing a back door would make all the iPhones susceptible to hacking by the criminals. Mr McAfee is of the belief that there would be a possibility of retrieving data from the phone by other means, but did not give much details regarding the same.

Tech Firms Support Apple

Those comprising of the Australian Children’s eSafety Commissioners, who had spoken to tech website ZDNet had stated that Apple would not essentially need to introduce a back door. However, the firm is only being asked to provide access to a single device. Other tech firms have supported Apple’s following a few days of debate on how it ought to respond to the request of FBI.

Sundar Pichai, Google boss had expressed his support for Mr Cook and recently chief executive of Twitter Jack Dorsey had added his approval through a tweet. Facebook had mentioned in a statement that it condemned terrorism and had solidarity with the victims of terror, though would tend to continue its policy of opposing requests of diminishing security.

It stated that they would continue to fight aggressively against the necessities for companies in weakening the security of their systems and these demands would develop chilling pattern as well as obstruct the efforts of the company in securing their products.

The Smartphone That You Can Bend

ReFlex – Bendable Smartphone – Get Direction/Read/Play Games

Recently, researchers from the Human Media Lab at Queen’s University in Canada have revealed a lightweight model atthe Tangible Embedded and Embodied Interaction conference in The Netherlands. It is called ReFlex which is built to bend as well as vibrate providing users with an improved sense of third dimension on their phones while they tend to get directions, read or play games. The phone’s basic hardware comprises of a 720p display which has been developed by LG together with a small phone processor running Android 4.4 `KitKat’.

Users could bend it like a stem or tend to stretch it like a rubber band. Having a bendable phone, users could rapidly thumb through books; feel for highlighted passages or for dog eared pages. Moreover, the flexible phone could also help drivers in keeping their eyes on the road enabling the possibility of `feel’ turn-by-turn directions. With games like Angry Birds, players could also bend their screens stretching out a slingshot with vibrations which could make the phone seem like recoiling rubber band.

However, the most amazing feature of the latest bendy model is that it is basically shatterproof. The secret behind the phone which is quite durable and lightweight is that the screen is plastic and not made of glass.

Android Device Stronger to Bend to 40 Degrees

The trade-off could be a deal-breaker in smartphone industry which has been dominated by glass screens. The phone tends to use off-the-shelf parts meaning a leap to market would not be a big jump. Professor Roel Vertegaal leading the team behind the phone comments that it is technology twelve years in the making. He further added that the phone is mass produceable as it is today.

Vertegaal whose academic research had been sponsored by the Canadian government and Canadian touch tech company, Immersion Corporation will not be building a consumer phone. He states that he will leave it to the Samsung’s and the LG’s of the world. According to his estimates it would take around three to five years in bringing the tech to the market.

The LG OLED display in the phone seems to be the same tech in bendable TVs and for $100, these LG smartphone screens could cost $25 more than a typical glass screen though would make the latest Android device much stronger to bend up to 40 degrees. The phone tends to be more flexible towards the centre with semi-rigid ends, where the 1,280 x 720-pixel display has a bit inferior resolution than an iPhone 6 at 1,334 x 750 pixels.

Flexible OLED Display

ReFlex seems to utilise a Flexible OLED display from LG alike to some of the rollable screens shown recently at CES this year which enables the user to bend it as desired. It is the first flexible phone with the combination of bend input with standard multi-touch abilities which means that one could use touch interaction such as a typical smartphone and also interact with definite apps on bending the phone.

Vertegaal has mentioned that when this smartphone is bent down towards the right, pages tend to flip through the fingers from right to left just like a book. With more extreme bends it would speed up the page flips and users can feel the sensation of the page moving through their fingertips through a detailed vibration of the phone. This would enable eyes-free navigation for the user, thus making it easy to keep track of where they are in a document.

Top PC Monitoring Software 2016

PC monitoring has become a necessity, especially in the organizations where there are a large number of employees with digital privileges. There’s no possible way for you as an employer to keep an eye on each and every individual, and this is exactly what employees take advantage of. They waste their time at work doing mundane activities like watching random videos, chatting with people, checking their social networking profiles, etc. This of course affects the overall performance of the company, which just isn’t acceptable in a competitive market. This is where PC monitoring software can really come in handy as it lets you keep tabs on how employees are using their computer and internet privileges at work. If you’re an employee who’s looking to get rid of the headache related to employees wasting time at work, we’ve got just the software lined up for you. Take a look and pick the one that best suits your needs.

Mobistealth

Mobistealth comes with a slew of awesome features that really puts you in control of your employees’ digital activities. It records every single keystroke typed by the employees during work hours, allowing you to know exactly what they are up to on their computer. Furthermore, there is a screenshot feature that takes pictures on regular basis. That’s not all though as Mobistealth also offers Skype logs. It’s no secret that Skype is a go-to platform for workplace chats, so having an eye on it certainly helps. Apart from the aforementioned features, this tool also comes with Facebook, Yahoo and Gmail chat logging, enabling you to see what’s being conversed. It even empowers you to keep tabs on the emails exchanged via Yahoo, Gmail, and Hotmail accounts. All of Mobistealth’s features are pretty important and if you’re on the hunt of a powerful monitoring software, then this one comes highly recommended.

Spyrix Personal Monitor

Spyrix Personal Monitor is another brilliant monitoring software. It is not as feature-rich as Mobistealth, primarily because its developers have put more of an effort on key logging. It can give you information regarding the passwords, created files, started applications, system logon, system log off, and so much more. Other than that, it provides you with the option of monitoring browsing activity, which is also a great help. With the help of this feature, you can see what sites your employees are visiting, and if you see too many random URLs there, then it is a pretty good sign that they have their priorities all wrong.

All in One Keylogger

As the name suggests, this tool also focuses more on key logging. The best part about this software is that it’s not very complicated. It is designed with the convenience of not so tech savvy people in mind. Even if you don’t possess knowledge about monitoring tools, you will still be able to operate All In One Keylogger without a hitch. All features of this software are presented upfront so that the users can see what’s on offer and then avail them without a problem. Some important features in this tool include key logging, web browser logging, multi-language support, website blocking, and so much more. If you are not good with technology but are really interested in deploying an employee monitoring solution in your workplace, then you should give All in One Keylogger a shot.

Tor- 'Mystery' Spike in Hidden Addresses

Tor/The Onion Router – Browse Through Web Anonymously

Exceptional spike in the number of hidden addressed on the Tor network has been identified by security expert and Prof Alan Woodward at the University of Surrey had spotted an increase of over 25,000 onion `dark web’ services. Prof Woodward had commented that he was unsure on how best to explain this sudden boom but one possibility was that it could be a sudden swell in the popularity of Ricochet, which is an app that tends to use Tor in enabling anonymous instant messages between users.

 The Onion Router or Tor enables users to browse through the web anonymously by routing their connections through a sequence of various computers and in the process encrypt the data. Prof Woodward had mentioned on his blog that there had not been a similar increase in .onion sites in the history of Tor network.

He had informed BBC that something unprecedented has been happening though at moment that is all what they are aware of. Dr Steven Murdoch at the University College London had mentioned that it is hard to know for certain what could be the reason for the jump. One of the objectives of Tor is to protect people’s privacy by not revealing how they are using Tor.

Rise in the Use of Ricochet - Chat App

Another interest defined by Prof Woodward was that inspite of the rise of hidden addresses; traffic on the network had not perceived a similar spike. He informed that it could be a coincidence that the spike could be due to a network of computers called a botnet unexpectedly using Tor or the hackers had been launching ransonware attacks.

It could also be the outcome of malware which could be creating unique .onion addresses when it tends to infect a user’s computer, though there seems to be no evidence for it. Prof Woodward also mentioned that he is of the belief that a rise in the use of an anonymous chat app known as Ricochet that has just received a huge positive security audit could be the most probable explanation.

Dr Murdoch had stated that this could be a possibility, adding that the spike could also be the result of someone running an experiment on Tor.

Ricochet Use Tor Network in Connecting Two Users

Ricochet tends to use the Tor network in setting up connections between two users who prefer to chat securely. The app’s website states that the same is accomplished without disclosing the locations or the IP address of the users and instead a username, each of the participants tend to receive a unique address like `richchet:rs7ce36jsj24ogfw’.

Though Ricochet had been available for some time, on 15 February reasonably positive results of an audit by security firm NCC Group had been published. Prof Woodward had mentioned on his blog that every new user of Ricochet would have to create a unique onion address while setting up the service and that could account for the flow in services. But he also admitted that 25,000 new users in just a matter of few days for the app, could recommend remarkable growth.

Automatic Bug-Repair System Fixes 10 Times As Many Errors as Its Predecessors

The researchers at MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) have devised a new system that is going to look for and detect bugs in a computer program and then run a repair process to fix it up automatically. This new system can browse through computer programming languages that are open-source in nature and learn about their general properties. This learning would then be used by the system to debug or make repairs for computer programs that might be of a different set.

What is it exactly? How does it function?

In simpler terms, this is a machine learning system that has been developed to fix up bugs that come up while developing various sorts of software. The system functions by borrowing the functionalities of various other applications or computer programs. The researchers at the institute are busy in experimenting so that they are able to take this hybrid system to a new level where the application will absorb the best components of all the other computer programs or languages.

This new and automatic debugging program has been named as the CodePhage and it will effectively patch program errors by picking up codes from another program (referred as the donour application) and paste into the program under diagnosis thereby make it bug free. The best part is – CodePhage is being developed in such a way that it will not be necessary for the repair code to be of the same programming language. In fact, the patch can belong to any programming language and the repair work would still be carried out. Not only that, the application would also have a function that will do a re-check and a verification to make sure that the bug has indeed been fixed. The system also makes use of DIODE (Directed Integer Overflow Discovery Engine) for the generation of crash inducing input(s).

The fate of CodePhage

Those who had worked on this wonderful project have claimed that this automatic bug repair system was put to test against seven of the commonly used open source languages that had bugs in it. It was found that this new app had successfully repaired the faulty code in a span of 10 – 2 minutes for each. And, this was a standard result for all such instances.

One of the interesting things about this experiment by the MIT researchers was that it was a standard approach where one could actually learn from a certain set of programs and apply those properties or knowledge for another or a different set of programs. Recognizing the correct code is very important as it will have a huge impact in the software engineering domain. Though this is just the beginning and is the very first application, but the experts believe that it does have the potential of becoming an excellent tool that going ahead.

The crucial aspect of this experiment with machine-learning systems was the analyzing and selection of the ‘feature set’. Thirty prime characteristics were identified and then the program was developed to evaluate these characteristics.