Vincent's Tech Blog

What would require crashing the wildly popular WhatsApp messaging application? Nearly 4000 Smileys. Yes, you can crash your friends' WhatsApp , both WhatsApp Web and mobile application, by sending them not any specially crafted messages, but just Smileys. Indrajeet Bhuyan , an independent researcher, has reported The Hacker News a new bug in WhatsApp that could allow anyone to remotely crash most popular messaging app just by sending nearly 4000 emojis to the target user, thereby affecting up to 1 Billion users. Bhuyan is the same researcher who reported a very popular WhatsApp crash bug last year that required 2000 words (2kb in size) message in the special character set to remotely crash Whatsapp messenger app. After this discovery, the company patched the bug by setting up the limits of characters in WhatsApp text messages, but unfortunately, it failed to set up limits for smileys send via WhatsApp. "In WhatsApp Web, Whatsapp allows 65500-6600 characters, b...

Meet an all-new Hacker’s Search Engine similar to Shodan – Censys . At the end of last month, security researchers from SEC Consult found that the lazy manufacturers of home routers and Internet of Things (IoT) devices have been re-using the same set of hard-coded cryptographic keys, leaving around 3 millions of IoT devices open to mass hijacking. But how did the researchers get this number? Researchers uncovered these devices with the help of Censys – a new search engine that daily scans the whole Internet for all the vulnerable devices. Censys Maintains Complete Database of Everything on The Internet Censys is similar to hacker's search engine Shodan, which is designed specifically to locate any devices that have been carelessly plugged into the Internet without much attempt at preventing unauthorized access. However, Censys employs a more advanced method to find vulnerabilities in the devices and make the Internet a safer place. Censys is a free search engine tha...

Yes, it's time to shift from Wi-Fi to Li-Fi — an alternative technology that is 100 times faster than the average speeds of Wi-Fi. Scientists have just field-tested the new wireless technology called Li-Fi for the first time and achieved marvelous wireless speeds that are 100 times faster than current WiFi speeds. What is Li-Fi Technology? Li-Fi is a new wireless technology that transmits high-speed data using light (i.e. Visible Light Communication or VLC) rather than radio bands. In short, Li-Fi is a Super-Fast alternative to Wi-Fi. Earlier this year, scientists achieved mind-blowing speeds of 224 gigabits per second (Gbps) in the lab using Li-Fi. It's believed that this technology has the potential to change everything about the way we use the Internet today. And Yes, it will. Test Results: Li-Fi is 100 times Faster than Wi-Fi An Estonian startup company called Velmenni took the technology out of the laboratories and into the real-world offices, and in...

Some of Bitcoin’s Core developers have left the Bitcoin project and started building their separate cryptocurrency called DECRED . Decred aims to prevent the issues Bitcoin is currently facing regarding project governance and development funding. CEO of 'Company 0', Mr. Jacob Yocom-Piatt, who has funded Bitcoin development since early 2013, said the actual development of the Bitcoin cryptocurrency is funded by external entities that forms a conflict of interests between the groups and the project's core developers. According to Bitcoin's developers, these group puts limitations on input in Bitcoin's governance, selecting options that are favorable to their own interests only, and generally ignoring the developers' and project's best interests. "The Bitcoin software is controlled by a small group of people who decide exclusively what can and cannot be changed," Jacob says in a press release. "This is in part due to a lack of mechani...

Breaking News: A 23-year-old Bahamian man has been arrested and charged with hacking into the email accounts of 130 celebrities and stealing the unreleased movie and TV scripts, sex tapes, explicit images and even the upcoming album of a famous A-List Celebrity. The hacker named Alonzo Knowles contacted a famous radio host to sell the stolen scripts for the first six episodes of a hit television drama currently being filmed. The unnamed host informed about it to the Homeland Security that cooked up a sting operation and had the radio host put the hacker in touch with an undercover investigator posing as an interested buyer. The LOSE Among the items he offered to sell were: Scripts for three comedy films A hip-hop biopic Another television show Social Security numbers for actors and professional athletes Emails and phone numbers of at least 130 celebrities Sex tapes of celebrities The hacker was arrested on Monday in Manhattan, a day after arriving from the Bahamas...

  Do you know? Microsoft has the power to track every single word you type or say to its digital assistant Cortana while using its newest operating system, Windows 10. Last fall, there was a report about a 'keylogger' that Microsoft openly put into its Windows 10 Technical Preview saying the company 'may collect voice information' as well as 'typed characters.' It was thought that the company would include the keylogger only within the Technical Preview of Windows 10, just for testing purpose. But, the thought was Wrong! The keylogger made its ways to Windows 10 public release offered by Microsoft for free due to which Windows 10 gained millions of adoption in just a few days after its first roll out back in July – but the free upgrade is not always free. Yes, besides various privacy issues, there is a software component that tracks your inputs using your keyboard, voice, screen, mouse, and stylus, however, it is a bit more complicated than you thou...

Microsoft's Windows 10, the latest version of Windows Operating System, has been creating waves since it rolled out, and reached to 110 million devices within just 2 months. If you are a long-time Windows user, you may remember a trick called, 'God Mode'. God Mode is an inbuilt, but hidden feature of Windows that provides additional customization options for the operating system. With Windows 10, all the Settings of the operating system are kept under Settings App, and categorized between System, Devices, Network & Internet, Personalization, Update & Security, Privacy and more. Enabling God Mode, also known as 'Windows Master Control Panel Shortcut', in Windows 10 essentially unlocks a backdoor of the OS to access 260+ additional settings from a single folder. How to Enable God Mode in Windows 10? Follow the steps given below to enable the God Mode in your Windows 10: Create a new folder on your Windows desktop (New > Folder) and save it...