Android 5.1.1 Lollipop update spotted on Google’s own site, may be released by end April

Google is testing Android 5.1.1 update, fixes the memory leak bug that crashed Apps and made Android smartphones slow

The attractive thing about Android and other open source is that there’s a great deal of transparency in the delivery, therefore immediately after the release of any update for Android, the tech forums are filled with the positives and negatives about the updates which helps Google to pin point any flaw or bug.

In the last few days there have been a couple of unsubstantiated murmurs about an incremental update for Android 5.1.1 being in the works. Now confirmed (thanks Andrew for the tip) to be the case, on the Android Audio latency page the Nexus 7 and Nexus 9 are listed as having Android 5.1.1 as their latest build and  the SDK Manager on Android Studio, API22 includes reference to Android 5.1.1

A lot of older phones are getting up to speed with Android 5.0 Lollipop, Google appears to be working on another incremental update, though it’s unclear what big features it’ll include.

The most recent update available to consumers is Android 5.1, but a newer build is already showing up on official Android pages. Android Police reports that Android 5.1.1 has appeared on Google’s Android audio latency information page, suggesting fans can expect something fresh in the coming weeks.

Google has just recently started rolling out Android 5.1 Lollipop within the last few weeks, but there may be another software version already on its way sometime soon. The next version would be Android 5.1.1, and it was recently found running on the Nexus 9 and Wi-fi Nexus 7 (2013) model on Google’s Android Audio Latency information page. The Nexus 9 is running build number LMY47S and the Wi-fi Nexus 7 (2013) is shown running build number LMY47W.

The fact that the update is already up and running suggests something is imminent or it could just be that Google is working behind the scenes for something to come after Google I/O.

Android 5.1.1 lollipop for Nexus 9 and Nexus 7:

As we have reported earlier that Google had announced the very latest Android 5.1 Lollipop in March fixing earlier depicted bugs and improving performance. The Android 5.1.1 update was expected to be released very soon for the Nexus devices.

Build numbers LMY47S and LMY47W were seen powering the Nexus 9 and the Nexus 7 (2013), respectively. This update would likely be an incremental update for usual bug fixing. Considering there are reports of still some major bugs remained to be fixed, it could give us some context on why Google is sending out another update that is close to the Android 5.1 Lollipop.

The memory leak bug which was present in all Android versions higher than Android 5.0.1 including the latest Android 5.1 made phone slower, with apps restarting or crashing on their own or a sudden drop in RAM and overall slowdown.

Later, with the release of latest Android 5.1, the official code forum filled up with users complaining about downfall in performance after they updated to the latest version. The forum users stated that the reason the slowdown in performance was due to an old Memory leak bug which hasn’t been patched yet.

Google is expected to release the next update quite soon to fix these issues. However, there was no confirmation that we will actually be seeing one in coming week or so as this could very well just be a sign of Google testing the update with no intention of rolling it out anytime soon. Unlikely, but you never know.

Android 5.1.1 will be fixing all issues such as the memory leak issue along with other little bugs too. The update will stable the performance of devices and possibly improve battery life too.-

Following the comments from Android users, finally, Google has acknowledge the bug and said that they have internally resolved the same. The users will have to wait for the fix which Google said, will be released with next patch for Android Lollipop.

With all of these factors together, the indications are that we should see an announcement and perhaps a rollout of 5.1.1 to Nexus devices sooner rather than later. But that… is merely speculation.

Project Loon : Google ready to fly thousands of Balloons to bring you Internet access

‘Project Loon’ : Google Division X ready with thousands of helium balloons to deliver Internet for all

If you have read about Google’s Project Loon then you may know that Google is planning to send helium balloons around the world and deliver Internet to users in remote areas. The project was started in June 2013 by the top secret Google Division X and now is going for beta phase.

According to the latest news from Google, it will be conducting Project Loon trials in Australia, New Zealand and Latin America.  Mike Cassidy from Google says that Google will be using its own manufacturing facility and automated systems to deliver a balloon in hours instead of days. He further stated that the company is now ready to launch thousands of balloons in the skies.

Google has tied up with leading service provides like Telstra in Australia, Telefonica in Latin America and Vodafone in New Zealand for end point connectivity.

Cassidy stated that their testing of Project Loon revealed that the helium balloons can stay afloat for six months, far above where planes fly. Further Google can keep a real time track of the balloons and retrieve them once they have outlived their life or run out of helium.  Cassidy said that Google has developed allied software systems and hardware for the same.

According to Google, the helium powered balloons can be used in disaster regions like earthquake or tsunami affected ones,  where on-ground communication has been destroyed can provide much necessary real time information about the situation on ground.   Each balloon is nearly 50 feet in diameter and an electronic equipments hang underneath each carrier, which include  radio antennae, a flight computer, an altitude control system and solar panels.

Cassidy further said that with the new automated crane system for reliable delivery of the balloons in the sky and that Google can now launch dozens of balloons every day.

Latest video of Project Loon

WhatsApp v2.12.45 for Android now lets you back up your conversations on Google Drive

WhatsApp updates its Android version to let you backup conversations to Google Drive. Here’s how you can do it

You are in lots of WhatsApp groups and mostly receive lots of jokes, videos and crack information on it but there are some WhatsApp conversations from near and dear ones you would like to save for posterity.

WhatsApp users have long been demanding that they should be allowed to save the conversations somewhere and now with WhatsApp com crossing the milestone of 800 million active users per month, it had released a new version WhatsApp v2.12.45 for Android which lets users back up their conversations on Google Drive.

All you need to do is update to the latest version and choose the option to take a backup to Google Drive in the chat settings tab. Once you have done that, you will have to log in with your Gmail credentials and sync data with the Google Drive you want to save your chats to.

Another thing to remember is that you should weed out the important WhatsApp conversations before backing up because lot of chats contain viral videos and images which may eat up your Google Drive GBs pretty quickly.

Unfortunately the latest version is still not available on Google Play and you will have to sideload it on your Android smartphone.  You can download it from WhatsApp website here.

The Google Drive option has been released only for Android smartphones and tablets and iOS/Windows Phone users will have to wait for some time before this option becomes available for their devices.

Twitter moves to Ireland to escape NSA and protect Advertisers

Twitter for non US users moved to Ireland to escape NSA user information requests and protect advertisers

Twitter is subtly upgrading the way it categorises users in order to escape the NSA requests for user data. To be effective from 18th May, Twitter will be divided into two entities, Twitter for US citizens and Twitter International Company non-US citizens.

The Twitter Inc will host US citizen accounts while a separate subsidiary called Twitter International Company which will be based in Ireland will handle all non-US Twitter accounts. Twitter has chosen Ireland because of Ireland’s lax privacy laws.

The reason for doing so is ostensibly to escape the court request which come from NSA and other US authorities about user details.  Ireland has one of the most relaxed privacy laws in Europe and as per the current Irish laws any data processed in Europe is not made available to NSA without explicit consent of an Irish court. Moreover, the upcoming cyber security bill and privacy legislation in European Union which will make it more difficult for US-based companies to share data about European users with advertisers.

Twitter Inc which is headquartered in San Francisco will look after all the US based accounts. Twitter’s Periscope will also be similarly affected. Twitter announced the future changes in the policy update post:

“If you live outside the United States, our services are now provided to you by Twitter International Company, our company based in Dublin, Ireland. Twitter International Company will be responsible for handling your account information under Irish privacy and data protection law, which is based on the European Union’s Data Protection Directive.

If you live in the United States, the services will continue to be provided to you by Twitter, Inc., based in San Francisco, California, under United States law.”

Of course avoiding the NSA or making advertising easier are not quite how Twitter explains the reason for the change:

As more people around the world use our services, we’ve expanded our operations to improve how we support our users globally.

However how this will work out in real world is really a big question Twitter will have to answer itself.

Sony announces new Xperia Z4 smartphone with a powerful front camera and latest Snapdragon processor

Sony Xperia Z4 old wine in new bottle : Xperia Z4 gets a better camera and updated processor over its predecessor Xperia Z3

Sony today announced a new flagship smartphone, the Xperia Z4. Sony said that the Xperia Z4 will be available to buyers across the globe this summer.

Xperia Z4 is a refined copy of Sony’s earlier flagship Xperia Z3 with a powerful front camera for better selfies and the latest Snapdragon processor.  Sony has also given the Xperia Z4 a slightly slimmer and lighter body. Other than that, Sony has repackaged Xperia Z4 with almost all other features of Xperia Z3.

Sony said the Xperia Z4 will ship with latest Android 5.1 Lollipop and includes Qualcomm’s latest 64-bit octacore Snapdragon 810 processor.  It will be powered by a 3GB of RAM and will have 32GB of onboard storage which can be expanded to 128GB through a microSD epansion slot. It has a 5.2-inch display, with resolution at 1920 x 1080 pixels.

As said above, Xperia Z4 is about a millimetre thinner than the Z3 while its dimensions are it’s 6.9mm thick, 72mm wide, and 146mm long. Weighing at 144g it is also a tad lighter than Z3’s 152g.

Like Z3, the rear camera in Xperia Z4 is retained at 20.7MP but Sony has bumped up the front camera from 2.2 MP to 5MP which seems to be standard for front facing camera’s now a days.

However Sony has reduced the battery in Xperia Z4 at 2930 mAh versus 3000 mAh on the Z3.

Sony is hoping the Xperia Z4 will take on the challenge from Samsung’s latest S6 and S6 edge and HTC One M9.

MIT Researchers develop ‘NailO’, A Trackpad on Thumbnail

‘NailO’ the all new Trackpad on Thumbnail from MIT Researchers

A team of MIT researchers have found an unusual small way to navigate on devices, where many of the people are trying somewhere else to design the alternative. Major companies who didn’t even think of the device, this product created by the team comes as a complete surprise. In fact, most of the major players in the sector were looking forward to create a device that has to do something with the eyes. However, we will keep this story for some other day.

Two graduate students, Cindy Hsin-Liu Kao and Artem Dementyev from MIT are working on a tiny track pad, which is small enough to fit on your thumb and large enough to enable you to maneuver through your smart device, as stated in the reports. The track pad is being called NailO and is inspired from the nail arts, which is very popular in most of the South Asian Countries. These two graduate students are developing on the track pad and believe that it can be a perfect substitute to browse through smart devices when both the hands are occupied.

The duo has also built a model in the meantime, which is capable enough to perform the basic functions required of it. The model has a swappable membrane, much like the nail arts, that allows the users to change the design at any point of time.

The inventors are looking to better the device to a greater scale which is another good aspect. Although the model is working fine, both the graduates are looking for areas to flourish and shine.

Kao and Dementyev are in talks with the suppliers who make very thin batteries that will exclusively fit in NailO. In order for it to be used on a greater scale, a lot needs to be still done for NailO, say the makers.

The inventors describe a model of the device in a paper they are going to present next week at the Association for Computing Machinery’s Computer-Human Interaction conference in Seoul, South Korea.

Hackers break into the remote key-less systems of the car with the help of $17 power amplifier

Car owners may have to keep their wireless Key fob in a Faraday Cage or freezer to protect their remote key-less car from being hacked by the $17 “power amplifier.”

Last week, Nick Bilton of The New York Times wrote a blog post regarding the electronic thieves who rob remote Key-less car and the probable methods that user can stick to so as to safeguard the car from getting hacked.

Bilton, observed certain strange thefts occurring in his locality in Los Angeles, wherein there was an array of mysterious car break-in during the recent months. Surprisingly, there were no signs of forcible entry like door being scratched or the glass broken and it seemed the thieves targeted only those cars which use remote key-less systems, wherein a wireless Key fob is used to unlock the doors and engine ignition instead of the traditional keys. Further, Bilton recalled the different cars that were targeted by these thieves around the area near his locality: Mazda 3, Toyota Prius. Also his Prius had three break-ins in the last month.

Bilton gave some details of the most recent break-in, it seems it was early morning hours when the incident took place. It was Monday and he was busy at his kitchen table and he happened to look out of his window because of some strange noises made by his dog. What he saw took him by surprise because he saw two teenagers ride a bike and suddenly stop near his 2013 Gray Prius. Then the girl hops off the bike and pulls out a “small black device” from her backpack. Then  she reaches down, opens the door and climbs into the car. By the time Bilton reached his car, the teenagers were back on the bike and they had fled from the scene. Though Bilton could not catch hold of the teenagers who were attempting the theft however, he was more concerned and also fascinating in getting to know the device that the girl had used to open the Prius.

Bilton tried inquiring Toyota regarding the device however the PR employee did not seem to know about such a device.

The spokes person at the Los Angeles Police Department’s communications desk, just casually told Bilton that he must have actually forgotten to lock the car! However, a public safety alert issued by the Toronto Police Service read: “Since January 1, 2015, investigators from 53 Division’s Major Crime Unit have noticed a spike in theft of Toyota and Lexus SUVs from driveways of homes in the Division. In all of the thefts, there have been no signs of damage at any of the scenes. Investigators believe that the suspect(s) may have access to electronic devices which can compromise an SUV’s security system.” The alert further urged people “members of the public to be vigilant when securing their SUVs, even in their driveways. Using a locked garage is recommended and any spare keys for SUVs should be secured in a safe location.”

The major issue here was that police just mentioned about the “device” but they did not give any specifications regarding this device.

Bilton further did some online research and got information that the car thieves have been using the electronic gadgets to unlock the car and steal. Some burglars hack the car and are able to drive the car without the need of  keys. Some blog posts also mentioned about “secret device” that is used to unlock the car however not much was mentioned about the device.

Bilton’s research led him to some old articles dated 2012 which gave him the details of how a car can be stolen by exploiting its features in the “three minutes to steal keyless BMW’s.” He also got an article that gave details of how the thieves use the mystery device to unlock the vehicles.

The security researches told him that most cars with the remote key-less system can be hacked easily. Bilton’s search also led him to Diogo Mónica, a security researcher and chair of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Public Visibility Committee, who confirmed “some sophisticated thieves have laptops equipped with a radio transmitter that figures out the unique code of a car’s key fob by using “brute force” to cycle through millions of combinations until they pick the right one.”

At last, Bilton got the answer to his curiosity when he spoke to Boris Danev, the founder a Switzerland based security firm known as  3DB Technologies. Mr. Danev has done his specialization on wireless devices and key fobs also he has done vast research on the security flaws of the key-less car systems.

Hence, when Bilton explained him the incident, Mr. Danev immediately understood what had happened and he explained:  “The teenagers, likely got into the car using a relatively simple and inexpensive device called a ‘power amplifier’. ”

Mr. Danev further explained: “In a normal scenario, when you walk up to a car with a key-less entry and try the door handle, the car wirelessly calls out for your key so you don’t have to press any buttons to get inside. If the key calls back, the door unlocks. But the key-less system is capable of searching for a key only within a couple of feet.” During the break-in: “When the teenage girl turned on her device, it amplified the distance that the car can search, which then allowed my car to talk to my key, which happened to be sitting about 50 feet away, on the kitchen counter. And just like that, open sesame.”

Futher Mr. Danev said: “It’s a bit like a loudspeaker, so when you say hello over it, people who are 100 meters away can hear the word, ‘hello’.” Mr. Danev also added: “You can buy these devices anywhere for under $100. Some of the lower-range devices cost as little as $17 and can be bought online on sites like eBay, Amazon and Craigslist.” Mr Danev also said that his company is working with the car manufacturers to install a chip in the car which will tell how far the  key is from the car and hence it can fully beat the power amplifier from tricking it.

As per Mr Danev the best way to protect the car from the “power amplifier” is to “put your keys in the freezer, which acts as a Faraday Cage, and won’t allow a signal to get in or out.”

So for all the users of the remote key-less cars try to keep your key fobs in freezer and get your cars protected from the power amplifiers and hackers.

WiFO new Wireless Connection using LED technology will make your WiFi 10 times faster

WiFO: Wireless connection using LEDs gives 10 times the bandwidth of Wi-Fi to users

Pretty soon you can leverage your LED lighting tech to increase your Wi-Fi bandwidth by 10 times its standard.  Which means you can incorporate more speed into your WiFi in crowded areas or when you have multiple Wi-Fi devices.

Researchers from Oregon State University have created a new technology using LED’s capabilities to produce beyond visual spectrum lighting to transmit data.  They have named the device as WiFO, and it can use the beyond spectrum lighting to transmit and receive data.  Currently, the prototype WiFO system looks like a typical ceiling LED system that stretches out across a given area, and according to the researchers each devices connected WiFO receives data rates of 50 to 100 megabits.

The Wi-Fi systems available in the market deliver data divided by the number of connections. For e.g. a 100Mbps Wi-Fi will only 10 Mbps to each users if it has 10 connections. According the researchers, WiFO will solve this problem by giving ten times more bandwidth per user.

“In addition to improving the experience for users, the two big advantages of this system are that it uses inexpensive components, and it integrates with existing WiFi systems,” said Thinh Nguyen, an Oregon State University associate professor of electrical and computer engineering.

Nguyen worked with Alan Wang, an assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering, to build the first prototype.

“I believe the WiFO system could be easily transformed into a marketable product, and we are currently looking for a company that is interested in further developing and licensing the technology,” Nguyen said.  Nguyen says that the WiFO can easily be made in as low as a dollar and is adaptable to USB standards.

The research team has already secured a provisional patent for WiFO and are now looking for sponsorships and partners for manufacturing WiFO commercially.

How to archive and download your Google Search history

Ever thought what you had searched 10 years ago? Google now lets users archive and download of Google Search History

Google Inc, a California based search engine giant, has started a new feature which will enable the users to download their entire search history. Google, which is called as knew it all search engine documents every query, stores every search result and archives them. Google uses these search results to find Ads meant for you and personalizes its search.

How to archive and download your Google search history :

• For starters go to your visit your Web & App Activity page.
• Then in the top right corner, you’ll see the Options icon and you need to click on Download.
• Once you do that, click on Create Archive.
• After the archiving is completed, Google will send an email with a confirmation and download link to the data.

According to Google, “when you download your past searches, a copy of your history will be saved securely to the Takeout folder in Google Drive. You can download the files to your computer if you want a copy on your computer.”

However, you should take note that this does not delete the Search History from Google’s archive. To do so, you need to go to the Web and Activity Page again, click on Options and then choose the search history items you want to delete and click remove. If you want to delete everything, you need to go with the option ‘Remove from the beginning of all time’ to delete everything.

There is also an option to pause search history in the web-activity search page, which ensures that whatever you are searching on Google does not directly go into the archive.

However, for those downloading their Search history, a word of advise for them. It’s better to make sure that you are downloading on your personal computer. In addition, do not depend on weak passwords to protect your Google account, as your Gmail password is basically linked to other Google Services including Google Drive, where the Search history is getting stored.

In order to use this feature, a user should have a Google Account. Further, a user has to log-in to https://history.google.com to access the Google Search History. After authenticating yourself with Google ID and password, it would bring you to a home page that would display your search results in very neat graphs. This is the first time that users are allowed to download logs of their Google search history.

Nearly 1500 iOS Apps have a vulnerability which can allow interception of sensitive user data

1500 Apps for iPhones and iPads are vulnerable to Man-in-the-Middle (MiTM) attacks

If you are using an iPhone/iPad or iPod, you should be worried because security researchers have found that around 1,500 apps for iPhone and iPad contain an HTTPS vulnerability which can be exploited by hackers to perform man-in-the-middle (MiTM) attacks to steal passwords, bank details and other private user information.

The vulnerability in AFNetworking code library which lets hackers perform the MiTM attacks was uncovered by SourceDNA.  Cult of Mac reports that the older AFNetworking code library version had the vulnerability and has been fixed in version 2.5.2 but several App developers have not updated their Apps, leaving them open to attack.

SourceDNA scanned around 1.4 million apps available on the Apple App Store and found out that around 1,500 Apps were not updated to the latest version of the AFNetworking code library. Though the number is quite small in ratio to the total Apps available on App store, even a single unpatched App could allow cyber criminals to mount a MiTM attack for malicious purpose.

Usually a fake secure socket layer certificate would be detected, causing the connection to be instantly dropped, but researchers found that due to a logic error in the code, a validation check is not carried out. This means that fraudulent certificates are trusted by apps running version 2.5.1 of AFNetworking.

“The issue occurs even when the mobile application requests the library to apply checks for server validation in SSL certificates,” the researchers wrote. “We tested the app on a real device and, unexpectedly, we found that all the SSL traffic could be regularly intercepted through a proxy like Burp without any intervention!”

Ars Technica reports that number of apps including Citrix OpenVoice Audio Conferencing, the Alibababa mobile app, Movies by Flixster with Rotten Tomatoes, KYBankAgent 3.0 and Revo Restaurant Point of Sale were still using the vulnerable version of AFNetworking but most common Apps used by iPhone/iPad users and Apps from Microsoft, Yahoo and Uber were patched following a private disclosure to developers.

Xiaomi looking to capture US markets with Xiaomi Mi 6 after its Guinness Record shattering sale

XIAOMI LOOKS TO CAPTURE US SMARTPHONE MARKET WITH XIAOMI MI 6

Xiaomi has set new benchmark in smartphone sales, by selling 2.11 million smartphones within 12 hours only, thus secured its name in the Guinness Book of Records. After making record sales in China and India, the two of biggest markets for smartphones, Xiaomi now has turned its attention to the United States and rumours have it that Xiaomi is launching a US specific Xiaomi Mi 6 smartphone.

The company was able to establish this achievement through one of its famous marketing strategy of “FLASH SALE”. After outperforming Apple Inc. and Samsung Group, strong rumors are floating around that the Xiaomi Mi 6 flagship might shine bright in US also, as the company is ready to expand its wings to other nations other than China and India.

Xiaomi has an impressive line of Android smartphones, that are equipped with latest features and 21st century technology and are available at affordable price, compared to its competitors. That is the new IDENTITY, what has effectively made them the THIRD leading smartphone maker in the world, just after APPLE and SAMSUNG.

It is believed, Xiaomi is ready to secure a bigger share in the smartphone industry of the global market, starting with all new Xiaomi MI 5.

The company is having a Global Smartphone Event in India on 23rd April, with the CEO Lei Jun, The President Bin Lin, and the company’s Global Vice President Hugo Barra. The event was titled as “i IS COMING”, so we can assume that its all about the future version of Mi 4, THE Mi 5. The Mi 5 will supposedly spread its wings to the European Markets.

Xiaomi rumoured new version Mi 5 and Mi 6 will feature a 5 inch or bigger screen with QHD resolution of 1,560 x 1,440 pixels. It will run on the new 64-bit Qualcomm Snapdragon 810 octa-core processor back, with 3 or 4 GB of RAM. It could feature a 20 mega-pixel camera and Android Lollipop 5.0 with the company’s own MIUI interface, as the company targets Samsung Electronics Co. in the market for large mobile phones.

The four-year-old company is broadening its branches of smartphones, tablets, televisions and routers to escalate competition with Samsung and Apple, which is said to be preparing Phones with larger screens.

As per AndroidInfo, the next flagship phone, the Xiaomi Mi 6 is preparing to invade the U.S., Xiaomi Mi 6 will be just as good as the smartphones that Apple, Samsung Group, HTC and LG are producing, within much more affordable price. The Mi 6 will have a large screen, a faster processor, and upgraded camera resolution from the Mi 4.

Xiaomi certainly have a strong foothold in the Indian and Chinese markets. But is the company ready to compete in the global markets, where people demand high-quality phones and price isn’t a defining factor for them?

Is Xiaomi the future of smartphones or just a FLASH SALE in the pan?

DARPA aims to make a computer system that can outlive 100 years of technological change

DARPA’s new project hopes to do away with software updates by establishing a computer program that evolves for 100 years

​The United States Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is launching a program that would do away with software updates and plans to design a computer program that would be able to outlast over 100 years of technological change.

The four-year project, Building Resources Adaptive Software Systems (BRASS), for which DARPA is currently inviting research proposals, will look at the performing arithmetic and analytical requirements needed for software systems along with the data accompanying it in order to remain operational for a century or longer.

The program is designed to make progress in the development of the design and implementation of long-lived software systems that have the ability to dynamically adapt to changes in the resources they depend upon, and the environments in which they operate as stated by the US Department of Defense technology research agency.

DARPA, who played a significant role in laying down the rules of conduct which led to the development of the internet, claims that such advances are likely to require new “linguistic abstractions” and resource-aware programs that are able to discover and specify program transformations, as well as systems designed to monitor changes in the surrounding digital ecosystem.

It is expected that the program will lead to significant improvements in software flexibility, dependability, and maintenance, which would help in the development of computer systems that can adjust to progressing operating conditions without the need for cycle updates from outside.

“Technology inevitably evolves, but, very often, corresponding changes in libraries, data formats, protocols, input characteristics, and models of components in a software ecosystem undermine the behaviour of applications,” said DARPA program manager Suresh Jagannathan. “The inability to seamlessly adapt to new operating conditions undermines productivity, hampers the development of cybersecure infrastructure, and raises the long-term risk that access to important digital content will be lost as the software that generates and interprets content becomes outdated.”

DARPA asserted that the platform on which the BRASS project will perform will be an entirely new “clean-slate” approach to software design, composition and adaptation. It is anticipated to result in analytical transformations that would help applications to adjust to changes without the involvement of an extensive programmer.

Jagannathan said that although the project’s plan of ensuring applications continue to function correctly and efficiently in the face of a changing operational environment is a “formidable challenge”, it is a challenge worth engaging in.

“Failure to respond to these changes can result in technically inferior and potentially vulnerable systems,” said Jagannathan. “Equally concerning, the lack of automated upgrade mechanisms to restructure and transform applications leads to high software maintenance costs and premature obsolescence of otherwise functionally sound software.”

A number of computer hardware and software systems that have been designed and created over 50 years ago are operational even today. However, many of these have required comprehensive updates and overhauls to remain compatible to external technological developments.

As COBOL, the programming language enters its 56th year of coming into existence, DARPA is all set to launch its new project. COBOL is still widely used by enterprises within the business and finance sectors for legacy applications inspite of having undergone major revisions.

Stuart McGill, CTO of Micro Focus, had suggested in 2013 that it was almost impossible for most people to avoid a COBOL application in their day-to-day lives.

“Normally, most transactions that we go through every day would be supported by COBOL applications, still are, have been for 30 to 40 years, probably still will be for 10 to 20 at least,” McGill told ZDNet in November 2013.

You can become a part of DARPA’s BRASS program by visiting here.

Windows 10 Hack : Unlock Secret Dark Theme in Windows 10 With This Registry Hack

Unlock a whole new Windows 10 theme which is dark, and serious, with this Registry hack

Windows 10 is finally upon us and with it come Easter Eggs and secret hacks which give users that bit extra fun to play with.  Microsoft has just released Windows 10 Build 10056 yesterday and it has an hidden dark theme, which is fun to use.

If you want that particular dark and broody theme, you will have to tinker around with the Windows Registry setting a little bit.  So the statutory warning goes that if you are not aware of registry settings, kindly dont touch them. Tinkering the settings can be potentially dangerous and it is always better to take a backup of your data on external storage.

Now that we have done with the warning part, tinkering a little bit with the Windows 10 registry lets you can unlock a whole new look for the operating system, taking Windows 10 to the dark side. It brings to the desktop version of Windows 10 a theme option reminiscent of Windows Phone.

To start the hack head to the Registry Editor: just hit the Windows key, type regedit and press Enter.

Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\ Themes\Personalize. You might find that the Personalize key doesn’t yet exist, so you may need to add it manually. Now create a new DWORD Value calledSystemUsesLightTheme and assign it a value of 0. That’s it!

Microsoft has not disclosed whether this is an Easter Egg in its new OS and whether this hack will be available in the final build of Windows 10. Till then you can enjoy the dark side of Windows 10.

May the force be with your!

Resource : Beta News.

Build 10051 of Windows 10 Technical Preview — which leaked online in the last few days — has a hidden dark theme. If you have grabbed a copy of this particular build, you’ll have noticed that there are a few tweaks here and there such as a resizable Start menu and a redesigned system clock.

Anyone Can Buy the Malware Used to Hack Sony

Malware used to hack Sony Pictures Corporate Network available on Dark Web underground forum for $30,000 in Bitcoin

The Sony Hack attack by #GOP Guardians of Peace, which took place last year, ranks amongst one of the worst cyber attacks in history ever.  The GOP hackers and their backers took down the entire Sony Pictures corporate network with a help of malware.

Now ex-hacker Jon Miller has said that any person with a knowledge of Tor anonymiser network and Dark Web underground markets can buy that particular exploit for $30,000 in Bitcoin.

Jon Miller made this sensational statement while appearing on 60 Minutes this Sunday. Jon also said that the exploit was not a custom made software but is easily available one. In fact, he stated that he could easily buy similar exploit from Russian hackers on dark web markets as and when he required and there were plenty of such sellers who have the technical know-how to carry out the attack themselves.

“There are probably three, four, five thousand people that could do that attack today,” Miller said, emphasizing that it didn’t take much to rip apart a huge corporation.

When you look at it in contrast to the capabilities that the United States government are deploying, it is nowhere close to being sophisticated.

My favorite analogy is the malware that was used to hack Sony is like a moped, and the malware being deployed by United States intelligence agencies is like an F-22 fighter jet. It’s much more sophisticated, it’s much harder to detect.

New Redirect to SMB Flaw in all Windows versions including Windows 10 allows hackers to steal login credentials

A critical Server Message Block (SMB) #VU672268 in all Windows version including Windows 10 allows potential hackers to steal sensitive login credentials

Security researchers at Cylance have discovered a serious vulnerability in all supported versions of Windows that can allow a potential hacker who has control of some portion of a victim’s network traffic to steal users’ credentials for valuable services.

Cylance researchers disclosed the vulnerability today on their website in which they said that their study is an extension to a similar research done by Aaron Spangler in 1997.

“The Redirect to SMB attack builds on a vulnerability discovered in 1997 by Aaron Spangler, who found that supplying URLs beginning with the word “file” (such as file://1.1.1.1/) to Internet Explorer  would cause the operating system to attempt to authenticate with a SMB server at the IP address1.1.1.1. It’s a serious issue because stolen credentials can be used to break into private accounts, steal data, take control of PCs and establish a beachhead for moving deeper into a targeted network. These “file” URLs could be provided as an image, iframe, or any other web resource resolved by the browser. “

The Redirect to SMB flaw is related to the way that Windows and other software handles some HTTP requests, and researchers say it affects a wide range of applications, including iTunes and Adobe Flash.

“Redirect to SMB is a way for attackers to steal valuable user credentials by hijacking communications with legitimate web servers via man-in-the-middle attacks, then sending them to malicious SMB (server message block) servers that force them to spit out the victim’s username, domain and hashed password.”

The bug is so severe that it affects not only affects all of the current versions of Windows but software from at least 31 companies including Adobe, Apple, Box, Microsoft, Oracle and Symantec say the Cylance researchers.

The experts at Carnegie Mellon University CERT have given it ID number #VU672268 and warned that once a potential hacker has managed to get the victims credentials, they can easily crack passwords offline. Carnegie Mellon University CERT team have been working with the above said software companies to help them mitigate the issue.

“Many software products use HTTP requests for various features such as software update checking. A malicious user can intercept such requests (such as with a MITM proxy) and use HTTP Redirect to redirect the victim a malicious SMB server. If the redirect is a file:// URL and the victim is running Microsoft Windows, Windows will automatically attempt to authenticate to the malicious SMB server by providing the victim’s user credentials to the server. These credentials can then be logged by the malicious server. The credentials are encrypted, but may be “brute-forced” to break the encryption,” the CERT advisory says.

Examples

The Cylance researchers have given following examples show different attacks that could be conducted. In order to effectively demonstrate attack scenarios, the conditions have been simplified. The following are the IP addresses of the computers in the examples:

• 192.168.36.207 – The Attacker

• 192.168.36.247 – The Victim

• 192.168.36.128 – The Router/Internet Gateway

The tools in the examples are as follows:

• SMBTrap2

• SMBTrap-mitmproxy-inline.py

• MITMProxy

• Zarp

You can download the white paper to get a detailed research about Redirect to SMB attacks.

Microsoft has not commented thus far and a patch can be expected later in the month.