Thursday, March 13, 2008
HOW TO HACK MOBILES
People are using their mobile phones to send increasingly private information as technology enables the use of email, etc on mobile phones. Hacking of a mobile phone can cover the hacking that involves tricking the mobile phone company into providing free texts, calls or wap. It can also include the cloning of sims in order to charge calls under another person's name and number or even the use of hacking to gain access to a person's confidential information such as passwords or various account details.
Cell phones - Hackers Next Target!
It was bound to happen - they have hacked just about everything else. Now it's the cell phones. Cellphone hacking has just recently surfaced and been made public ever since
some one did some cellular phone hacking on Paris Hilton's cell phone. This article will give
you some information about what is going on out there and what you can do to better protect your cell phone information.
What Does It Involve ?
The fact of someone hacking cell phone became public knowledge when Paris Hilton's cell phone, along with her information was recently hacked. Unfortunately for her, all her celebrity friends and their phone numbers were also placed on the Internet - resulting in a barrage of calls to each of them.
Cell phone hackers have apparently found a glitch in the way the chips are manufactured. The good news, though, is that it only applies to the first generation models of cell phones that use the Global System for Mobile communications (GSM). Another requirement is that the hacker must have physical access to the cell phone for at least three minutes - which is a real good reason not to let it out of your sight. Currently, although the problem has been remedied (at least for now) in the second and third generation phones, it seems that about 70% of existing cell phones fall within the first generation category.
Another way that mobile phone hacking can take place is for a hacker to walk around an area with people that have cell phones and a laptop that has cellphone hacker programs on it. Through an antenna, and a little patience, his computer can literally pick up your cell phone data - if it is turned on. This is more applicable to cell phones that use Bluetooth technology.
Surprisingly, there are quite a number of things that can be accomplished by the hacker. Depending on their intent here are a few of them.
•Steal Your Number
Your phone number can be accessed and obtained by cellphone hacking. This allows them to make calls and have it charged to your account.
•Take Your Information
Mobile hacking allows a hacker to contact your cell phone, without your knowledge, and to download your addresses and other information you might have on your phone. Many hackers are not content to only get your information. Some will even change all your phone numbers! Be sure to keep a backup of your information somewhere. This particular technique is called Bluesnarfing.
•Rob Your Money
Other options might use a particular buying feature called SMS. This refers to the fact that money can be taken from your account and transferred into another - and a good
hacker can sit in one place and access a lot of phones and transfer a lot of money rather quickly - probably in less time than you think!
•Give The System A Virus
By using another cell phone hack code, a hacker could kidnap your phone, send it a camouflaged program or send it a virus. But it does not end there, since, from that point, he can use your phone to retransmit the virus to many other phones almost instantly - potentially disabling the system.
•Spy On You
A hacker can also gain access and take over for cell phone spying and remote mobile phone hacking. Literally, once secured, the hacker can have the phone call him, and then be able to listen to all conversations going on around the owner of the phone.
•Access Your Voice Mails
Voice mails can also be retrieved by a hacker through a hacking cell phone. After stealing your number, this can easily be done - if your password is disabled. The main thing that needs to be understood here, is that the electronics that give you the modern convenience of interacting with the Internet (getting your voice mails, emails, Web surfing, etc.) , is also the same technology that allows you to receive the same ills as can befall someone on the Internet.
Examples:
BTInfo - You can access to Sony Ericsson phones and More with this app - Download btinfo
BlueSniff - BlueSniff is a GUI-based utility for finding discoverable and hidden Bluetooth-enabled devices. Download BlueSniff.
BlueBugger - BlueBugger exploits the BlueBug vulnerability. BlueBug is the name of a set of Bluetooth security holes found in some Bluetooth-enabled mobile phones. By exploiting those vulnerabilities, one can gain an unauthorized access to the phone-book, calls lists and other private information. Download BlueBugger.
CIHWB - Can I Hack With Bluetooth (CIHWB) is a Bluetooth security auditing framework for Windows Mobile 2005. Currently it only support some Bluetooth exploits and tools like BlueSnarf, BlueJack, and some DoS attacks. Should work on any PocketPC with the Microsoft Bluetooth stack. Download CIHWB.
Bluediving - Bluediving is a Bluetooth penetration testing suite. It implements attacks like Bluebug, BlueSnarf, BlueSnarf++, BlueSmack, has features such as Bluetooth address spoofing, an AT and a RFCOMM socket shell and implements tools like carwhisperer, bss, L2CAP packetgenerator, L2CAP connection resetter, RFCOMM scanner and greenplaque scanning mode. Download Bluediving.
Bluesnarfer - Bluesnarfer will download the phone-book of any mobile device vulnerable to Bluesnarfing. Bluesnarfing is a serious security flow discovered in several Bluetooth-enabled mobile phones. If a mobile phone is vulnerable, it is possible to connect to the phone without alerting the owner, and gain access to restricted portions of the stored data. Download Bluesnarfer.
BTcrack - BTCrack is a Bluetooth Pass phrase (PIN) cracking tool. BTCrack aims to reconstruct the Passkey and the Link key from captured Pairing exchanges. Download BTcrack.
It seems that the major cell phone companies, at least at this point, really are not interested in bringing the system up to be able to cope with this threat. Meetings are starting to take place, but for now it is not perceived to be real serious. This could be because it is primarily the older phones that are most susceptible to some types of this mobile hacking.
Until the cell phone manufacturers are able to cope with, or eliminate, the glitches in the system that allows them to overcome these problems, you will largely have to help yourself to cope with these things. Here are a couple of tips that will help you protect your cell phone, its information, and other things.
•Use Your Passwords
The cell phone companies tell us that many people have turned off their passwords when they access their voice mail messages, or other things. This little feature, though it may seem to be an annoyance to some, could protect your phone from unauthorized purposes.
•Leave The Phone Off
This one is obviously the harder choice, here, simply because most of us who have cell phones like to be reached anytime and anywhere. Others do need to be reachable at all times.
•Upgrade Your Phone
While this cannot guarantee that your phone is not hackable, it certainly will help. It should be remembered that the phone companies work hard to deliver the best technology and conveniences - but the cell phone hacks work just as hard to be the first to break the systems designed to defeat them. It is an ongoing battle.
Cellular phone hacking, for now, is a fact of life that affects a few of us. Gladly, the numbers are still small, but many feel this problem is just getting started. By being aware of the problems, you can wisely take steps to prevent them from happening to you. Cellphone hacking does not need to catch you unprepared.
Europe Approves Google’s Merger With DoubleClick
BRUSSELS — European regulators on Tuesday approved Google’s $3.1 billion takeover of the online advertising company DoubleClick, the final hurdle to a deal that would strengthen Google’s already powerful position on the Web.
The European Commission, the executive arm of European Union, said that its investigation, opened in November had concluded “that the transaction would be unlikely to have harmful effects on consumers, either in ad serving or in intermediation in online advertising markets.”
The merger had been opposed by rivals like Yahoo and Microsoft, which had voiced concern about Google’s advertising clout, as well as by consumer groups, which feared that the combined company would have access to a large amount of data on individual Web-surfing habits.
Tuesday’s approval follows that of competition authorities in the United States.
“We are thrilled that our acquisition of DoubleClick has closed,” Eric E. Schmidt, Google’s chief executive, said in a statement.
The deal with DoubleClick, Mr. Schmidt said, “will dramatically improve the effectiveness, measurability and performance of digital media for publishers, advertisers and agencies, while improving the relevance of advertising for users.”
Shares of Google rose $13.68, to $427.30 in New York mid-afternoon trading Tuesday.
The commission said Google and DoubleClick “were not exerting major competitive constraints on each other’s activities and could, therefore, not be considered as competitors,” and even if DoubleClick could become an effective rival in online intermediation services, “it is likely that other competitors would continue to exert sufficient competitive pressure after the merger.”
Microsoft and ATT had asked regulators to block the deal, arguing that a merged Google-DoubleClick would have too much power to set advertising rates.
The commission uses different, and slightly broader, criteria to assess mergers than the Federal Trade Commission, which approved the DoubleClick deal in December. However, there was never much expectation that the top European regulator, Neelie Kroes, would block the deal.
Ms. Kroes has shown a willingness to take on large companies — including, notably, Microsoft — but has been reluctant to intervene in mergers. Since she came into office in 2004, Ms. Kroes has blocked two mergers: a Portuguese power utility deal and the proposed takeover of the Aer Lingus by the budget carrier Ryanair.
Her predecessor, Mario Monti, suffered several setbacks when the courts overturned his efforts to block mergers. As a consequence, Ms. Kroes has concentrated on cartel-busting and on seeking to prevent companies like Microsoft from abusing their dominant market position.
Last month, the commission fined Microsoft 899 million euros, or $1.3 billion, for failing to comply with a 2004 judgment that the company had abused its market dominance. The fine was the largest ever imposed on an individual company. Microsoft’s battle with the commission has cost it 1.68 billion euros in fines.
Convert Adobe PDF Digital Document to Flash via PdfMeNot
PDF format is a popular file format for electronic document which is widely used nowadays. With Adobe PDF, users can capture the original look and feel of a document, including all the fonts, images, graphics, and formatting of the original application file. However, this digital document format sometimes can be a real pain to users, e.g. slow download, slow response and slow in powering up Acrobat reader. To reduce the hassle, users can try some free online PDF to Flash converters which will instantly convert the Adobe PDF document to Macromedia Flash format without changing the original layout, formatting and images. These online PDF to Flash converters are useful either to readers or bloggers/website owners.
Bloggers/Website owners can embed the PDF files into their websites or blogs for viewing. Readers who don’t have Acrobat Reader installed in their computer can view the PDF file online without difficulties. There are a few free online PDF to Flash converters available that users can try. One of the useful PDF to Flash converters that users can try is PdfMeNot service.
PDFMeNot is a free online PDF to flash converter. It can convert a PDF document into flash display format for viewing. To use this service, users need to go to PdfMeNot and either enter the URL of a PDF file or upload the file from the computer. For instance, let’s say you have a PDF document via “http://abc.com/report.pdf. Go to PdfMeNot and type in the URL. You will be able to read the digital document in flash format. You will also get a link to connect the existing file to PdfMeNot and an embedded code. Based on the above example, the new link and the embedded code will be:
New Link: http://pdfmenot.com/view/http://abc.com/report.pdf