Poor wi-fi? Cook up a better signal with a baking tray

Credit: silicon.com

No matter how well prepared you are, there are times when you don't quite have to hand all the technology you really need.

Today, I find myself on a boat in just that situation and unable to get online with wi-fi or 2.5G for want of a better antenna. My mobile phone is showing one bar of 2.5G and one bar of wi-fi. My laptop isn't doing any better, and a data connection is proving impossible.

There are some buildings behind the trees on the other side of the river, and my scanner is showing a number of open access wi-fi opportunities. But all I have is what I carry, and that does not include a high-gain antenna. Time to improvise. A visit to the galley turns up a much-used baking tray. A few simple experiments later and I'm able to locate the direction of the 2.5G base station and the strongest wi-fi signal.

Source: 

Silicon.com

How To Play PS2 Games On PC

Wanna play PS2 games on your PC? Here is step by step tutorial with images that explains in details how to play PS2 games on your PC.
STEP 1
First create New Folder, you can name folder what ever you want .In this example it’s PS2 folder.
Go to the this LINK and download setup file for your PS2 emulator. Save it to PS2 folder.
STEP 2
Go to the LINK and download required documents to run your PS2 emulator. Save it to PS2 folder and extract it .

STEP 3
Click on PCSX2_0.9.6_setup application and follow installation process.


Go to the folder where you installed PCSX2_0.9.6_setup application , in my example it’s C:\Program Files\Pcsx2\
Copy Pcsx2 folder to PS2 folder.


Open Pcsx2 folder and click on pspcsx2 0.9.6 application .

STEP 4
After clicking pspcsx2 0.9.6 application will pop up window as below, press ok .

Click on Configure under Graphics.

And depending on your own computer choose the best settings.

STEP 5
Click on Configure under First Controller.

Select Pad 1 tab and click on each button to configure the controls for your emulator. After you’re done for every button press Apply.

STEP 6
Click On Set Bios Directory .

Select the Documents\PS2\Extras\bios and click OK

STEP 7
Click on Config and go to Speed Hacks

On the left panel choose the third option Use “x2 Cycle Rate” and on the right panel choose
first “INTC sync Hack” and second option “Enable IOP x2 Cycle Rate”
On the bottom select “Escape Hack – Use Esc key to fully exit PCSX2″.

You’re PS2 has been configured so let’s go download some PS2 games.

STEP 8
Let’s go back to the PS2 folder and Create new folder called Games

Go to the website where you’ll be able to download PS2 games. Try this website ps3iso.com . Download your games to folder Games and Extract it in Games folder.


STEP 8
Go back to the PS2 emulator . Click on Config -> Configure

Under CDVD Rom click on Linuz Iso CDVD 0.8.0

Click on Configure and Select ISO file, your downloaded PS2 games .


STEP 9
Click on File -> Run CD/DVD



After this you’ll be able to play PS2 games on your PC.
If the playstation2 emulator doesn’t work after you have carefully followed all the steps in this post , your problems may be due to your computer . Make sure your drivers are all up to date. You may need an upgraded graphics card as well. Do not expect the same performance from the computer emulation of the playstation 2, that of which you would get from the console. This tutorial is for education purposes only. I’m in no way affiliated with sony playstation 2 or any other copywrited material related to sony .

How to Detect Anonymous IP Addresses

As the fraudsters are now becoming more sophisticated in bypassing the Geo-location controls by using proxies (Anonymous IPs) to spoof their IP address, it has become very much necessary to come up with a means for detecting the proxies so that the authenticity of the users can be verified. Using a proxy (web proxy) is the simplest and easiest way to conceal the IP address of an Internet user and maintain the online privacy. However proxies are more widely used by online fraudsters to engage in cyber crimes since it is the easiest way to hide their actual Geo-location such as city/country through a spoofed IP address. Following are some of the examples where fraudsters use the proxies to hide their actual IP.

 

1. Credit Card Frauds

For example, say a Nigerian fraudster tries to purchase goods online with a stolen credit card for which the billing address is associated with New York. Most credit card merchants use Geo-location to block orders from countries like Nigeria and other high risk countries. So in order to bypass this restriction the credit card fraudster uses a proxy to spoof his IP address so that it appears to have come from New York. The IP address location appears to be legitimate since it is in the same city as the billing address. A proxy check would be needed to flag this order.

 

2. Bypass Website Country Restrictions

Some website services are restricted to users form only a selected list of countries. For example, a paid survey may be restricted only to countries like United States and Canada. So a user from say China may use a proxy so as to make his IP appear to have come from U.S. so that he can earn from participating in the paid survey.

 

Proxy Detection Services

 

So in order to stop such online frauds, Proxy Detection has become a critical component. Today most companies, credit card merchants and websites that deal with e-commerce transactions make use of Proxy Detection Services like MaxMind and FraudLabs to detect the usage of proxy or spoofed IP from users participating online.

Proxy Detection web services allow instant detection of anonymous IP addresses. Even though the use of proxy address by users is not a direct indication of fraudulent behaviour, it can often indicate the intention of the user to hide his or her real IP. In fact, some of the most used ISPs like AOL and MSN are forms of proxies and are used by both good and bad consumers.

 

How Proxy Detection Works?

Proxy detection services often rely on IP addresses to determine whether or not the IP is a proxy. Merchants can obtain the IP address of the users from the HTTP header on the order that comes into their website. This IP address is sent to the proxy detecting service in real time to confirm it’s authenticity.

The proxy detection services on the other hand compare this IP against a known list of flagged IPs that belong to proxy services. If the IP is not on the list then it is authenticated and the confirmation is sent back to the merchant. Otherwise it is reported to be a suspected proxy. These proxy detection services work continuously to grab a list or range of IPs that are commonly used for proxy services. With this it is possible to tell whether or not a given IP address is a proxy or spoofed IP.

 

How to Tell Whether a given IP is Real or a Proxy?

There are a few free sites that help you determine whether or not a given IP is a proxy. You can use free services like WhatisMyIPAddress to detect proxy IPs. Just enter the suspected IP in the field and click on “Lookup IP Address” button to check the IP address. If it is a suspected proxy then you will see the results something as follows.

So for all those who think that they can escape by using a spoofed IP, this post is the answer. I hope this information helps. Pass your comments.

What is CAPTCHA and How it Works?

CAPTCHA or Captcha (pronounced as cap-ch-uh) which stands for “Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart” is a type of challenge-response test to ensure that the response is only generated by humans and not by a computer. In simple words, CAPTCHA is the word verification test that you will come across the end of a sign-up form while signing up for Gmail or Yahoo account. The following image shows the typical samples of CAPTCHA.

 

 

Almost every Internet user will have an experience of CAPTCHA in their daily Internet usage, but only a few are aware of what it is and why they are used. So in this post you will find a detailed information on how CAPTCHA works and why they are used.

 

What Purpose does CAPTCHA Exactly Serve?

CAPTCPA is mainly used to prevent automated software (bots) from performing actions on behalf of actual humans. For example while signing up for a new email account, you will come across a CAPTCHA at the end of the sign-up form so as to ensure that the form is filled out only by a legitimate human and not by any of the automated software or a computer bot. The main goal of CAPTCHA is to put forth a test which is simple and straight forward for any human to answer but for a computer, it is almost impossible to solve.

 

What is the Need to Create a Test that Can Tell Computers and Humans Apart?

For many the CAPTCHA may seem to be silly and annoying, but in fact it has the ability to protect systems from malicious attacks where people try to game the system. Attackers can make use of automated softwares to generate a huge quantity of requests thereby causing a high load on the target server which would degrade the quality of service of a given system, whether due to abuse or resource expenditure. This can affect millions of legitimate users and their requests. CAPTCHAs can be deployed to protect systems that are vulnerable to email spam, such as the services from Gmail, Yahoo and Hotmail.

 

Who Uses CAPTCHA?

CAPTCHAs are mainly used by websites that offer services like online polls and registration forms. For example, Web-based email services like Gmail, Yahoo and Hotmail offer free email accounts for their users. However upon each sign-up process, CAPTCHAs are used to prevent spammers from using a bot to generate hundreds of spam mail accounts.

 

Designing a CAPTCHA System

CAPTCHAs are designed on the fact that computers lack the ability that human beings have when it comes to processing visual data. It is more easily possible for humans to look at an image and pick out the patterns than a computer. This is because computers lack the real intelligence that humans have by default. CAPTCHAs are implemented by presenting users with an image which contains distorted or randomly stretched characters which only humans should be able to identify. Sometimes characters are striked out or presented with a noisy background to make it even more harder for computers to figure out the patterns.

Most, but not all, CAPTCHAs rely on a visual test. Some Websites implement a totally different CAPTCHA system to tell humans and computers apart. For example, a user is presented with 4 images in which 3 contains picture of animals and one contain a flower. The user is asked to select only those images which contain animals in them. This Turing test can easily be solved by any human, but almost impossible for a computer. 

 

Breaking the CAPTCHA

The challenge in breaking the CAPTCHA lies in real hard task of teaching a computer how to process information in a way similar to how humans think. Algorithms with artificial intelligence (AI) will have to be designed in order to make the computer think like humans when it comes to recognizing the patterns in images. However there is no universal algorithm that could pass through and break any CAPTCHA system and hence each CAPTCHA algorithm must have to be tackled individually. It might not work 100 percent of the time, but it can work often enough to be worthwhile to spammers.

How to Download YouTube Videos: Easiest Way

YouTube is undoubtedly the most preferred website to share and watch favorite videos. Most users prefer to watch the videos online, while a few others like me, would like to download them so that, they can be saved and retained. Well, if you are one among those few who would like to download the videos from YouTube, then here is a way to do that.

In fact, there are many ways to download videos from YouTube, but here in this post, I would like to share with you one of the easiest way to do that. This can be done as follows:

1. Download and install the latest version of Internet Download Manager.

Internet Download Manager is a great add-on for your web browser which increases the download speed by 5 times. It also helps you to pause/resume and schedule your downloads. It has got a great interface and is user friendly. It works with most of the browsers including IE, Firefox, Chrome, Safari and Opera.

2. After you complete the installation, just open your browser and start searching for your favorite video on YouTube. You will see the download button on top of the video using which you can download it instantly.

 3. Click on the “Download this Video” button to save the video onto your computer. The downloaded video will be in the flash video format (.flv).

4. You can use VLC Player to play the downloaded video or use SUPER to convert it to your desired format.

By using this trick, you can download almost all the buffering content on the Internet including videos from MySpace and Google. I hope you like this small post. Don’t forget to pass your comments. Enjoy  

How to log off, restart and shutdown, connected computer from one location?

Windows XP has a built-in feature (shutdown tools) that is used to shutdown any connected computers from any one computer. Using this feature, you can log off, restart and shutdown any computer in your network. This tip is very useful for you, if you are a Network Administrator at your company, because if you have experience to shutdown all connected computers daily in your local area network one by one, definitely that job is annoying responsibility for you.

Follow the given steps to configure shutdown tool on your computer:

To use this feature, you will need to be logged into your computer with administrative rights.

To perform this task, first make sure your both computers are directly connected or connected to network.

Click Start button then type shutdown -i in Run option then press Enter for next

A small windows dialog box will appear with the title "Remote Shutdown Dialog".

Here first click on "Add" button to add computer, a small Add computers window will open, here type the name or IP address of the computer (you can add many computer for same action) that you want to turned off, then press OK for next.

Now select the action "What do you want these computers to do (log off, restart or shutdown)". If you want to warn your users about this action, select the check box "Warn users of the action" then set time, display warning for 30 seconds or more.

Now select the option that describes the reason to shutdown the computers and also type some comments for users.

Now when you press the OK button, the users will see a "System Shutdown Windows "with time and comments that you had been set.

How to Create Your Own Customized Run Commands

The Run command on Microsoft Windows operating system allows you to directly open an application or document with just a single command instead of navigating to it’s location and double-clicking the executable icon. However, it only works for some of the inbuilt Windows programs such as Command prompt (cmd), Calculator (calc) etc. So, have you ever wondered how to create your own customized Run commands for accessing your favorite programs, files and folders? Well, read on to find out the answer.

Creating the Customized Run Command

 Let me take up an example of how to create a customized run command for opening the Internet explorer. Once you create this command, you should be able to open the Internet explorer just by typing “ie” (without quotes) in the Run dialog box. Here is how you can do that.

 

1. Right click on your Desktop and select New -> Shortcut.

2. You will see a “Create Shortcut” Dialog box as shown below

 

3. Click on “Browse”, navigate to: Program Files -> Internet Explorer from your Root drive (usually C:\) and select “iexplore” as shown in the above figure and click on “OK”.

4. Now click on “Next” and type any name for your shortcut. You can choose any name as per your choice; this will be your customized “Run command”. In this case I name my shortcut as “ie”. Click on “Finish”.

5. You will see a shortcut named “ie” on your desktop. All you need to do is just copy this shortcut and paste it in your Windows folder (usually “C:/Windows”). Once you have copied the shortcut onto your Windows folder, you can delete the one on your Desktop.

6. That’s it! From now on, just open the Run dialog box, type ie and hit Enter to open the Internet Explorer.

In this way you can create customized Run commands for any program of your choice. Say “ff” for Firefox, “ym” for Yahoo messenger, “wmp” for Windows media player and so on. 

To do this, when you click on “Browse” in the Step-3, just select the target program’s main executable (.exe) file which will usually be located in the C:\Program Files folder. Give a simple and short name for this shortcut as per your choice and copy the shortcut file onto the Windows folder as usual. Now just type this short name in the Run dialog box to open the program.

I hope you like this post! Pass your comments.

How to Hack Symbian S60 Phones to Install Unsigned Applications

If you own a Nokia Symbian S60 phone, you will most likely be aware of the fact that it is not possible to install applications on it unless they are signed using a valid certificate. Have you been trying to install applications on your S60 3rd or 5th edition phone but ending up getting a certificate error? At times, this can be really annoying; but here is a smart solution to this problem!

Here in this post, I will show you how to hack your Symbian S60 3rd or 5th edition smartphone, so as to modify the phone’s firmware and completely bypass the mandatory signing requirement. So, once you are done with this one time hack, you should be able to install any compatible application including unsigned and those with an expired certificate.

 

What is the Need for Signing Applications?

From the 3rd edition onwards, all the Symbian S60 applications need to be signed in order to ensure their integrity, so that it would not be possible for a third party to tamper with the application. Also, signing ensures that you always install applications from a trusted source.

However, there are many freeware and beta applications that come unsigned as the developers cannot afford to buy a symbian certificate. Hence, it can be a real nightmare for the users who need to install such applications on their phones. So, here is a step-by-step procedure to hack your phone and permanently disable this security feature.

 

1. Download HelloOX2 V2.03 or the latest version from the HelloOX2 Ofiicial Website.

HelloOX2 is an excellent tool to hack Symbian S60 3rd, 5th and Symbian^3 smartphones which makes it possible to install a root certificate by gaining full access to the phone’s system files. With this capability, you can install anything you want on your phones without the need to worry about the annoying certificate error!

2. The signed version of HelloOX2 demands for a donation and hence, only the unsigned version is available for free download. So, if you have the unsigned version, you need to sign it before installing on your phone. In order to sign any application, you need to have the certificate and the key file which can be obtained as follows:

• Go to the OPDA Website, get registered and login to your account.
• Click on the “Apply Certificate” tab, enter the model number and the IMEI of your phone and then click on “Submit and Upload” button.
• It will usually take up 24 hours for your certificate and key file to be generated and uploaded. To check the status of your certificate click on “My Certificate” tab. If the certificate is ready for the download you will see something as follows:

 

• Download the certificate and the key file on to your computer. Also download the SisSigner tool to sign your HelloOX2 application.
• Open the SisSigner, load the HelloOX2.sis, certificate and the key file as shown below and click on “Sign”. Leave the “Key File Password” field blank.

• Your HelloOX2 application is now signed and ready for the installation.

3. Install the signed HelloOX2 application on your phone and run it to start the hacking process, which is completely automatic. Within a minute your phone will be hacked. Once this is done, say goodbye to the annoying certificate error and install any application.

I hope you like this post. Express your opinion through comments. Enjoy!!!

[Via gohacking]

How to Write-Protect Your USB Flash Drive

Many a time, it becomes necessary for us to write protect our USB flash drive so as to protect it from viruses and other malware programs. Because flash drives are so popular and most widely used to move data between computers, they are the prime target for attackers as a means to get infections spread around the computer world. Also, since USB drive is not a Read-Only Memory (ROM), the data inside it can easily be modified or deleted by malware programs.

But unfortunately, most of the new flash drives do not come with a write-protect feature as the manufacturers wish to cut down the cost of production. Hence, the only way to write-protect your USB flash drives is to enable this feature on your own computer.

This can be done by adding a small entry to the Windows registry which acts as a switch that can be enabled to make use of the write protection or disabled to allow write access. Just follow these steps:

1. Open the Registry Editor (Open the “Run” dialog box, type regedit and hit “Enter”).

2. Navigate to the following Registry key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\

 3. Create a New Key named as StorageDevicePolicies. To do this right-click on Control, and click on New->Key and name it as StorageDevicePolicies.

4. Now right-click on  StorageDevicePolicies and create a New->DWORD (32-bit) Value and name it as WriteProtect.

5. Double-click on WriteProtect and set the Value data to 1.

Now the right-protection for USB drives is enabled on your computer (no restart required) and thus it would not be possible for anyone or any program to add/delete the contents from your USB flash drive. Any attempt to copy or download the files onto the USB drive will result in the following error message being displayed.

 To revert and remove the write-protection, all you need to do is just change the Value data for WriteProtect (Step-5) from 1 back to 0. Now write access to all the USB devices is re-enabled.

Sometimes it may seem difficult to remember and follow the above mentioned steps each time you want to enable/disable the write protection. Hence as an alternative way, there are many tools available to automatically enable/disable the write-protection feature. One of my favorite tool is USB Write Protect by Naresh Manadhar. Using this tool you can limit write access to your USB drives with just a click of a button. 

You can download this tool from the following link:

USBWriteProtect

 

[Via Gohacking]

XSS Injection Vulnerability in WordPress 3.2.1

Bad news for just about every WordPress blogger out there. Thousands of WordPress 3.2.1 installations are at risk of being compromised. It has been found that the latest version 3.2.1 of WordPress, an extremely popular suite of tools for powering blogs, is vulnerable to XSS injection attack which allows users to inject malicious JavaScript as a result of failure in sanitizing the comments field. Without discussing much about what this vulnerability could do to your blog I will jump to how it works and the solution.

How does it work?

Inject one of the below codes into the comment field of the target. Or use your brain to make a more powerful injection

Popup “alert” Box

Redirect to www.hungry-hackers.com

Cookie Stealer (need a logging system in place)

Solution:

Upgrade to the latest version when available, In the meantime disable comments or hold comments for moderation as I did