Five WhatsApp Hacks You Should Know

WhatsApp has taken the era of messaging to another level. Starting from text messages to voice call and now video chat. It has magnanimously brought the entire world at the tip of your fingers. People opt for Android phones just to avail WhatsApp for themselves. You can even share photos and videos using this application. Other applications may not be there on everyone’s phone, but this is an application that is common to all. It is very addictive and you are liable to get charmed under its spell. The application has rigorously taken the notches high by introducing new updates and features after being taken under by Facebook. Here, are some enrapting tips that will give you a much advanced use of WhatsApp.

• How To Hide Your Chats – You can now hide all your chats so that no third person can get the hue of your personal life by just archiving them. In order to avail this option you need to go to the chat area and just tap and hold on to the chat you want to archive. Once the entire chat that you want to archive is selected, you will find that a button with a down-arrow will be visible on the left side of the screen. You just need to tap on that arrow and your chat will be archived and when you want to access this chat, just scroll down towards the end of the chat page and tap on the archived chats option. 
• How to Doodle on Images – You can now play with your photos and modify them the way you want as WhatsApp has upgraded itself to provide its users the benefit of Snapchat, due to this feature you can doodle the image before sending, i.e., you can add stickers or crop the image the way you prefer. 
• Text Highlighting – This is completely a new feature that is used during group chat or long compiled texts. The user will now be able to highlight the text by just tapping on the arrow on the top right corner of your skin. 
• You can also Tag People on WhatsApp – This feature is really beneficial in a group chat, as using this feature you can tag people in the respective group by using @. This enticing feature was previously available only on Facebook but now with the upgraded version of whatsapp you can use it in your group chat to avoid any confusion or misunderstanding in denoting people. 
• You can Mute Group Chats – WhatsApp might be very interesting, but it is a fact that we are not always free to entertain text messages. So, now you can avoid getting disturbed by frequent messages from any group. You just need to tap on the chat that you want to mute by pressing the mute button that appears on the top of the screen. A pop-up will immediately appear and will ask you that for how long you want to mute the conversation for eight hours, a week or a year. Just choose your desired time period and the feature will be applicable.

Dark Net is More Resilient to Attack than the Internet

Our reliance on internet for day to day activities is growing exponentially with every passing month. Internet is regarded as a robust and complex network which happens to fail quite a lot even though the technological evolutions are upgrading it capabilities at break neck speed. A research conducted by the scientists has revealed that the dark net which remains hidden from the regular internet as well as invisible to the common search engine happens to be less vulnerable to the cyber attacks. Given the fact it has low visibility and not everyone knows about it keeps it secure even though it works on the same foundation of the commonly used internet.

Decentralization is the major reason for attacks on common internet

The regular is extremely decentralized which is known to become extremely stable in normal circumstance which makes it easier to wreak it. Internet is just an amalgamation of sites and servers which are millions in number and works fine even when you take out few sites or servers from this complex network. That is why it becomes more vulnerable and can easily be used to launch a coordinated attack and this is what exactly happens when someone launches a distributed denial of service attacks or more commonly known as (DDoS). Dark Net is less vulnerable because of its unique structure.

Lack of rick club effect safeguards dark net from attacks

Their study has found that the powerful network nodes in the regular internet tend to connect with the powerful nodes with ease. This helps in forming what these scientists describe as network elites. Therefore launching an attack on single such node results in triggering the failure of the other nodes and this ultimately results in failure of the whole network. Dark net simply does away with the high level connectivity among the powerful nodes present in its network.

When it comes to network elites in the dark elites then appear to avoid each other which ensure its robustness against the mitigated attacks. Dark net in essence creates the ‘small world network’ which is filled up with the heavily connected nodes link which is a part of the smaller local nodes. It can be easily visualized as the major traffic hubs and how they connect with the smaller airports spread across the region. Scientists are still to figure what makes the dark net so much touch against the attacks when they happens to very much similar to regular internet in the way it works and interacts with different node in many ways.

Scientists have put forward the thought that completely reconfiguring the internet is the only resort toward infusing the robust toughness in the regular internet. This method of reconfiguring the complete internet will certainly be a giant momentous task that would be expensive beyond imagination but this will help in bringing highly secure environment for the next generation of the users and large companies.

Google Head Confirms Second Generation Pixel Phone

This year might have just have begun but we are already moved by the reports of Google and Apple. Probably this year would bring a dynamic change in the world of cells. Google is trying its best to compete with it’s one of the top rivals –Apple with Second Generation Pixel phone. Well, Apple has always maintained the trend of releasing iPhones each year ever since its inception and now we may see Google just following the same trend. But the catch is whether Google will be able to match up to the expectations of the users and also whether it would take everyone by surprise. The rumours of iPhone 8 have already been spread but now the question lies whether Apple would be able to be deliver those features without any glitches like the 3-D selfie camera which is supposed to map your face.

THE PIXEL 

With the news being confirmed that Google is set to launch the second version of Pixel which can range around 900$. So be prepared to shed a bit more for the wonderfully crafted design of Pixel 2. The previous Pixel boasts of an enormous charging facility and battery backup which is the major concern for the normal consumers. Well, it was able to give seven hours of standby charge when it was charged for just fifteen minutes. Needless to say, the design was superb with the storage capacity of 32 GB or 128 GB. The video calling app like DUO may get a newer look or an upgrade in the Pixel 2. The ALLO app for messaging was a huge success. The design may be a sleek a bit and may use cutting edge technology to beat the likes of Apple in the top smartphone market.

THE FEATURES

With the passage of time, the technology has got more advanced and with more exciting features, it is just icing the cake. The latest report says Google is planning to ditch the headphone jack just like the iPhone 7. It is planning to take over the market in the broader way. Well, this report might not be true as it was an internal Google document and hasn’t been verified still. But within a short span of time, the picture would be clear. The processor for the Pixel 2 would be Snap Dragon. Probably it would be the Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 SoC. It is supposed to be water resistant as well as dust resistant.

THE MARKET

Google’s main focus would be on photography just like the predecessors. And for this they have decided to stay premium in the market. Well, we have got to have patience before any final news is confirmed about the product and release date. It is now time to see whether there would be any better feature than the Gorilla glass or not. The display is said to be HD with latest features which will be quite cool when coming to the photography part. The year surely promises to be awesome with respect to the smartphones.

Protection Against Android Malware

BGR

Some tips could always be useful irrespective of the user being new to Android who would be eager to explore new available options on the screen. Some of them could also be annoying which tends to come with the daily functions and operations. These tips could be helpful to the user since every few months there seems to be some security vulnerability in Android which could affect many users of Android smartphones, for instance in recent years, Quadrooter together with Stagefright.

 These two security vulnerabilities were considered to be different. In regular life, how secure would Android be and what would be helpful against the dangers from the internet? Numerous security holes had been exploited by Quadrooter, in Qualcomm drivers in the summer of 2016 wherein nine hundred million Android devices had been affected.

This had been presented by those who had identified the gaps. But in order to take the benefit of the Quadrooter exposure, the invader needs to be capable of installing and running an appropriate designed app on a smartphone. The Stagefright susceptibility seemed to be different which was unseen in the functions in processing of streams or media files and the issue was that when even a video would be sent as an MMS there was a tendency of it being misused.

The invader had the capability of sending a file to the user where the dangerous code could be accomplished. Beginning with Android 4.0, it seemed difficult to exploit the susceptibility owing to the system intervention, though it is not difficult. The dissimilarity between the two security breaches is evident. While Quadrooter tends to need few steps from the user, Stagefright can be exploited remotely without the need of interaction of the user. Android tends to have various means of safeguarding the security of the users. The most significant methods are:

1. Prevention of installation of unfamiliar apps 

There is said to be a setting in the Android system which enables or disables installations of apps of unfamiliar source wherein the option gets deactivated on the device in its delivery state where one can install apps only from the Play Store. Some of the companies tend to have their own app store preinstalled like in the case of Samsung, with its Galaxy Apps. The capability of limiting the option is not relevant for these and this option tends to protect the user against malware spreads through an unfamiliar app store or simple internet pages. News regarding malware in the Play Store seems to be quite rare since these disreputable apps are eradicated rapidly from the Play Store. However, unknown sources need to be activated in using app store of Amazon or perhaps for another like F-Droid.

2. Virus Scanner of Google 

The second line of defense of Google does not seem to have compatibility issue but provides security against malicious apps – virus scanning. Beginning with Android 4.2, this has been made available and is now a part of the services of Google Play. It has also been activated by default and should be left that way. The setting is said to enable apps to be scanned for likely malware before the installation. However if malware tends to be discovered, Android rejects the installation.

Quadrooter Malware 

Google had confirmed with Android Central some few days after discovering that Quadrooter malware cannot be installed while the corresponding setting had been set. Adrian Ludwig, security chief of Android had declared that it was identical to Gooligan, the malware which had hacked Google accounts in December 2016. As of April 2016, Android Security Report, in 2015 states that with this procedure, the threat landscape for users of Android could be considerably less and with this feature the malware apps does not have any chance against Google. Essentially the verification of the app tends to function by calculating the fingerprint – hash value of an APK which is compared against the database of Google comprising of likely threats. Google tends to scan apps on the Play Store, as well as APKs which are accessible through the web.

Alerts against Ensuing Manipulation

This system seems to be quite effective since around 90% of the apps connected outside the Play Store seemed to be well-known to Google which had been scanned for probable security concerns. Besides this, Google is also capable of extracting specific features from the apps subjecting them to identical process which enables Google to identify dangerous feature. Thus it warns the user if essential and also prevents the installation of such a kind of app. Google, in the meantime tends to scan the installed apps during the process and can also alert against ensuing manipulation of the app, which is already installed. In the case of extreme condition, there is also the likelihood of removing apps from the smartphone if these have been permitted by a device administrator.

Google Fights Online Trolls With New Tool Perspective

In the past couple of years the internet has turned into an ugly place which is filled with name calling, harassment and in some extreme cases with threats of violence. The extent of the online violence or trolling or abusive barrage is so much that half of the internet users in United States have stated that they had experience such intimidation.

Almost a third of those users has confirmed that they restraint themselves from posting anything online simply out of fear. This data has been generated by a non-profit Data & Society Research Institute and a gruesome has fact has emerged from this study which points that the young women and women of colour are targeted specifically by the trolls.

Google is coming up with a noble solution for this by releasing an artificial intelligence tool named Perspective. Perspective is designed to scan the online content and define its ‘toxicity’ purely based on user’s ratings.

How Perspective works?

Perspective works in a simple and dignified fashion wherein a user can feed an online comment board eight into the Perspective to understand it toxicity level based on the user’s responses. This score will help the users in deciding whether they should participate in the conversation or to stay away from it. This tool will be a boon for the publishing houses as they will be able to monitor their site’s comments boards in a more effective manner.

Quick scan of ugly words on Perspective

Perspective support rating for specific words and phrases as well wherein a quick scan is conducted and results are shown to the user. Perspective has thrown an insightful report based on a quick scan of the ugly words. This report has shown that the words with n-letter has toxicity of 82 percent, k--- which is a derogatory word for the Jewish person had toxicity of 39 percent while c--- which is a slur for Chinese origin person had toxicity of 32 percent. When phrases like ‘you are a’ is thrown at Perspective then the toxicity score goes up wildly.

The future applications of Perspective

The use of Perspective is free and open for everyone and it is up to the publishers whether they wish to showcase the results to public or not. Currently the online publishers rely on the crowdsourcing methods in which readers are required to flag the offensive language in the comments to the human moderators. Perspective can even be utilised by the website owners in cleaning up the language on their sites.

Some have suggested that Perspective can lead towards censoring the free speech in the long run. In a response Google has stated that this tool has been designed to flag the ‘low hanging fruit’ which can be later on adjudged by the human moderators whether it should be removed or not.

Google attempt towards fighting the troll and abusive content in the online arena is very similar to the efforts of Twitter and some other non-profit organisations.