CHINA CAUGHT ON WRONG FOOT in its own MARCH

1. Across the globe ,across all the cyber attacks investigated one thing that comes out common is the source of attack ie CHINA.As always China has been always denying all claims and has been doing reverse propoganda of actually deep rooted spoofing and involvement of other countries.But recently it was caught on the wrong foot in front of the international nietizens....

2.   Below is the extract straight from FEDERAL COMPUTING WEEK penned as China provides smoking gun against itself in cyberattacks by John Breeden II

" But now, thanks to China itself, I have proof that the People’s Liberation Army does attack the United States, and likely does so on a regular basis.

China’s claims of innocence have come crashing down because of an apparent mistake in editing in a documentary on the country’s own state TV that should never have gone live. The PLA presentation demonstrated its military capabilities. Amid all the tanks and planes, the propaganda piece showed a mere four seconds inside the group's cyber warfare center.Without narration, one has to think that the cybersecurity part of the piece was only put into the video by accident, a technical background shot placed between segments for a bit of extra color. However, those four seconds are both telling and damning to the Chinese lie that they don’t attack the United States.

Here is the incredible part: During those four seconds, we clearly see a Chinese soldier use a drop-down list to choose from preset target websites around the world. Then he actually attacks a website in Alabama.

In this case, the website was setup to support Falun Gong, a spiritual movement outlawed in China that practices meditation and a philosophy that emphasizes moral responsibility.

Even though all the targets shown in the four-second video were Falun Gong sites around the world, the fact that they were in a drop-down menu is telling and appalling. You don’t set up drop-down menus with attack buttons unless you plan to use them. And the Chinese military did push the attack button in the video, so apparently it has no problem pulling the trigger.

So to all you people who wanted to know where my smoking gun was, watch the video. It’s clear to me that we are under attack from China right now.

It’s time for China to own up to what it is doing. Or it’s time for the United States to do something about it."

3. The video link is shown below for info of all.Watch it carefully!!!!

4. Thanks http://fcw.com

touched........20,000

thanks 2 all visitors.....

Now Aerial cyber attack!!!!r u safe anyway?

"Imagine sitting in a cofee house with your laptop and chatting with your dear friend.....and then calling a friend on your phone and then paying your bill and moving out for ur regular work"

1.    Now imagine some thing u never imagined.....all what you chatted and all what you spoke on phone in the cafe house is compromised....all saved at a location unknown to you....

2.    Two security professionals proved as much at the Black Hat cybersecurity convention in Las Vegas.This has been made possible after investing a few thousand bucks, a tool box and some technical skill like these two security professionals,Richard Perkins and Mike Tassey have done.These two guys have assembled a small, unmanned airplane that is capable of some truly remarkable and potentially disastrous hacks.

3.    Perkins is a security engineer supporting the U.S. government and Tassey is a security consultant for Wall Street firms. But after work, the long-time buddies would take off their cyber attack prevention hats, put on their evil hacker thinking caps, and build their airplane in Perkins' garage.

4.    The plane can wreak lots of havoc.

- For instance, it can fly over a Starbucks (SBUX, Fortune 500) and steal the personal information of everyone connected to the coffee shop's free Wi-Fi network. It can intercept your cell phone conversations and even reroute your calls to another number. It can trace the location of specific people and follow them home.

- Perkins and Tassey spent a total of just $6,190 to build the plane. They made a point to keep it relatively cheap and to buy components that were readily available to prove that literally anyone could make one."You don't need a Ph.D. from MIT to do this," said Perkins. "There are no custom parts, it was fabricated using hand tools, and very little coding is required. All you need is dedicated people."

5.    Thanks CNN

IBM developing PCs that may run 30 times faster

1.   A one-atom-thick layer of carbon has currently become the focus of interest of IBM and the U.S. military to build computers that function at near the speed of light.

2.  The focus is actually based on GRAPHENE, the thinnest and toughest material ever produced, that conducts electricity, a breakthrough that opens the door to its use in digital electronics

3.   Some key finding on GRAPHINE :

- Graphene is the basic structural element of some carbon allotropes including graphite, charcoal, carbon nanotubes and fullerenes.

- Graphene conducts electricity 30 times faster than silicon -- approaching the speed of light

- Until recently, use of graphene was limited to development of more-efficient batteries and foldable touch screens.

- Nokia, the world’s largest maker of mobile phones by volume, is investigating the material’s potential use in cell phones, touch screens, and printed electronics. 

- Graphene’s flexibility and strength is astonishingly 300 times tougher than steel - may lead to the Nokia Morph, the first foldable phone.

- “With a graphene battery the same amount of weight and volume as a current one, you could drive 300 miles instead of 100,” said Yuegang Zhang, a principal investigator at the lab. 

- Graphene has the ideal properties to be an excellent component of integrated circuits. Graphene has a high carrier mobility, as well as low noise, allowing it to be used as the channel in a FET.

4.     Thanks Wiki and electroiq

JAVA SE DEVELOPMENT KIT NOT FOUND!!!!

1.   On way to experiment with android application with the stand SDK toolkit....i got messed up with the installation procedure so much that i thought of just leaving it..... in spite of all java installed  i got this screen.....

2.   I read all trouble shoots of on JAVA site.....some diverted me to registry editors and what not.......till i got the correct answer...simply click BACK and then NEXT again......khatam...thats the end of it.....

ANDROID APPLICATIONS CLONED : Developers make it spam

1.    The latest to add on to the growing web of spams is repackaged android applications.....though till now most of the descried repackaged applications are not reported to have any malicious code in them and also like the genuine ones they are also made available for free. These effected applications have the same module as the original, but include an advertisement module ,thus developers of these apps try making money off the clicks on the advertisements.

2.   The thing is easy on part of the developers since it is easier on thier part to just fiddle with original Android apps which are written in Java and are, therefore, easily cloned.....

3.   Thanks www.f-secure.com

Your VOICE to charge your MOBILE

1.     Amazing as it may sound reading.....but here is the way thats gonna please us all to get resolved on issues of mobile charging...so many times it has happened that on our way out either we think the mobile is fully charged or when we talk too much on phone.....or just when one small query will resolve us of a standing problem...the mobile goes offffff......problem : MOBILE BATTERY IS DRAINED ....no more.....please read ahead for brief details on the subject....

2.   The new technique developed by Korean engineers for turning sound into electricity - technology that could allow cell phones to be charged while users chat(...bak bakk).Thus Phones equipt with the technology could generate power from any kind of background noise — meaning the phone could be charging even when you’re not speaking directly into the phone. The need to carry around an outlet charger could be supplanted by time spent listening to music, or perhaps even the sound of the wind roaring past your car window.The technology is made possible by tiny strands of zinc oxide that are sandwiched between two electrodes. As a sound-absorbing pad atop the device vibrates to ambient noise, causing the zinc oxide wires to compress and release. This movement is what generates the electrical current.A prototype has already converted sound of about 100 decibels into about 50 millivolts of electricity. That’s not enough to charge a phone, but it’s an encouraging test, and researchers are optimistic that the technology could soon be developed into something more powerful.

3. Thanks http://blogs.forbes.com/  and http://inhabitat.com

MAKE incognito YOUR DEFAULT SETTING

1.    We all know how to browse hidden ie Pages you view in this window won't appear in your browser history or search history, and they won't leave other traces, like cookies, on your computer after you close the incognito window. Commonly it is known as "incognito" or "privacy browsing".......an avid user of chrome ....I always had to open the browser and then select "New Incognito Window" to work...but not till today....a simple amendment in the target setting of properties of chrome shortcut will always make you open the incognito window......simply append "--incognito" at the end of the link address as shown below : 

C:\Users\???????\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\Application\chrome.exe --incognito

2.    More clearly ...right click on the chrome shortcut on the task bar or on the desk top and click properties.In the target text box append "--incognito" to what is already there defining the location of the chrome browser....

3.     Thats it......

FLIRT BOTS

1.   I am sure most of you at at some point of time in your cyber surfing would have come across chat/messenging softwares like MSN or yahoo to mention a few....now although pretty old for the regular security guys, but thought of mentioning it here in my blog of how many of us succumb to the meanly desires of hackers via FLIRT BOTS.....u heard it correctly they are known as FLIRT BOTS.... 

2.  Here's how Flirt Bots work:

- The Bot strikes up a conversation in a chat room

- The Bots use a series of easily configurable "dialogue scenarios" with pre-programmed questions and discussion topics to compile a report on every person it meets

E.g.: ilovyou@yahoo.com says: "hey, whats up?" and further to this conversation they are invited to visit a website which could be used for any variety of malicious activity.

E.g.: ilovyou@yahoo.com says: "Ok go to http://??????.??/?????? and accept the invite on the page baby"

3.   In this case the victim is sent to a website "?????????.com" and is asked to provide personal information including credit card details in order to view the "webcam."

4.   The site can be used for many things - to host malicious downloads, or to try to sell you Fake AntiVirus software. The URL can do and host whatever the "bot master" specifies it to be .Frequently cyber-criminals collect a database of personal information and sell it to the highest bidder or anyone who will pay

5.   These "Flirt Bots", were first reported as a proof of concept(Evidence that demonstrates that a business model or idea is feasible.) by PC Tools in 2007.Thanks http://www.pctools.com

SYMANTEC SPOTS ONE INTERESTING E-MAIL CAMPAIGN

1. A fresh spam outbreak has been detected online that's drawing attention widely and effects users with e-mails laced with malicious software. Reportedly, there's one web-link embedded in the spam messages supposedly providing details, while the same messages try to pull down a .zip file attachment.The interesting aspect regarding the new spam mail relates to the inclusion of a password that the recipient earlier used.Now if I see a passowrd which at one point of my cyber surfing I had used it is bound to stirr up doubts of it being actually genuine.Once i donwload this zip file ,the eventual aim is achieved ie downloading the inevitably malware.

2. Reportedly, the malware as mentioned above has been identified as Trojan.Zbot or Zeus a Trojan which tries to grab secret data after compromising an end-user's PC. Further, it may take down updates and configuration files online, according to Symantec.

3. Additionally the e-mail ids and their corresponding passwords within the above unsolicited electronic mails, arrive from one prominent social gaming website, known internationally and currently being most widespread inside Asia.

4. Hence, Symantec advises all those who think they've fallen prey to compromised accounts to scan their PCs with an AV program followed with resetting all vital passwords, particularly online banking passwords. Additionally, they must also keep a watch over their accounts should they suspect any fraudulent operation.

5. Thanks http://www.spamfighter.com

BULLET PROOF HOSTING

1. Bulletproof hosting refers to a technique wherein web hosting firms permit their customers appreciable leniency in the kinds of material they may upload and distribute. 

2. Many service providers have "Terms of Service" that do not allow certain materials to be uploaded/distributed, or the service to be used in a particular way, and may suspend a hosting account, after a few complaints, to minimize the risk of their IP subnet being blocked by anti-spam filters using Internet Protocol (IP) based filtering. Additionally, some service providers may have ethical concerns that underpin their service terms and conditions.

3. Bullet Proof Hosting allows people who want to promote their product, service on their web site by sending Commercial and Bulk Emails. As well known, Email Marketing has emerged as one of the most effective and economical marketing tool. It gives you the power to broadcast your message to millions of prospects across the world and it works!

4. This leniency has been taken advantage of by spammers and providers of online gambling or pornography.Case in point is the case of "McColo ISP takedown in November 2008".McColo was one of the leading players in the so-called "bulletproof hosting" market — ISPs that will allow servers to remain online regardless of complaints.

5. Thanks http://bulletproof-server.net/

INSPIRED FROM INDIA : CHINAs ATTEMPT ON TAKING ON CORRUPTION

1.    In recent last few months,a lot has been happening in India in form of anshans,demonstrations,dharna's to bring back the black money freezing in swizz banks and to reduce corruption...so far so good...the spark happened and is now gradually bowing to the Government which ensure and loves STATUS QUO.....atleast thier wasy of working confirms this....instead of supporting the movement...they took the key persons involved head on and now in another about a week or so we will be back to STATUS QUO...

2.    But China's esurient Internet users are taking a leaf from India's anti-corruption drama by opening websites so citizens can confess, sometimes in pitiless detail, to buying off officials.Several Chinese confess-a-bribe websites, including "I Made a Bribe" (www.ibribery.com), have been inspired by an Indian website "I paid a bribe" (ipaidabribe.com)......china ranks 78th in the corruption list whereas we list at the 87th rank...m sure it is much worse.....apna nahee to kisi aur ka to bhala hoga........jai ho INDIAAAAAAAAAA

3.     Thanks http://www.reuters.com

McMurdo station & more DATA CENTRE Locations

1.    We all keep reading on issues like heating when we discuss data centres......now with the problems that datacenters have with cooling, the Antarctic is perhaps the ideal site for such a facility....i thought that was a joke before i first read about this and saw the pics on site at here

2.     The station's datacentre is dedicated to supporting scientific work and running the station - with 64 servers and more than 2PB of storage connected to hundreds of desktops by a gigabit Ethernet network.McMurdo Station is the telecoms hub for science projects, field camps and operations in western Antarctica funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF).To provide these services, it has a central telephone exchange and a wide spectrum of network, radio-frequency and satellite-communication systems.At the South Pole, every day up to 100GB of science data is transferred from the station to the US via satellite-communication links in support of multiple NSF-funded science projects.

3.    Thanks DIGIT.

HOW DO U FIND IF YOUR PC IS HACKED?- PART 6

FIND COMMAND

1.   Most of the commands I have discussed so far spew a lot of output on the screen, which could be hard for a human to look through to find a specific item of interest. But, Windows comes to the rescue. Users can search through the output of a command using the built-in find and findstr commands in Windows. The find command looks for simple strings, while findstr supports regular expressions, a more complex way to specify search patterns. Because the regular expressions supported by findstr go beyond the scope of this tip article, let's focus on the find command. By default, find is case sensitive - use the /i option to make it case insensitive.

2.    The find command also has the ability to count. Invoked with the /c command,it'll count the number of lines of its output that include a given string.Users often want to count the number of lines in the output of a command to determine how many processes are running, how many startup items are present  or a variety of other interesting tidbits on a machine. To count the lines of output, users could simply pipe their output through find /c /v "". This command will count (/c) the number of lines that do not have (/v) a blank line ("") in them. By counting the number of non-blank lines, the command is,in effect, counting the number of lines.

3.  Now, with the find command, users can look through the output of each of the commands I've discussed so far to find interesting tidbits. For example , to look at information every second about cmd.exe processes running on a machine, type:

C:\> wmic process list brief /every:1 | find "cmd.exe"

Or, to see which autostart programs are associated with the registry hive H KLM, run:

C:\> wmic startup list brief | find /i "hklm"

To count the number of files open on a machine on which openfiles accounting is activated, type:

C:\> openfiles /query /v | find /c /v ""

Whenever counting items in this way, remember to subtract the number of lines associated with column headers. And, as a final example, to see with one-second accuracy when TCP port 2222 starts being used on a machine, along with the process ID using the port, run:

C:\> netstat -nao 1 | find "2222"

THANKS www.amazingit.blogspot.com

HOW DO U FIND IF YOUR PC IS HACKED?- PART 5

NETSTAT COMMAND

1.  The Windows netstat command shows network activity, focusing on TCP and UDP by default. Because malware often communicates across the network, users can look for unusual and unexpected connections in the output of netstat, run as follows:

C:\> netstat –nao

2.  The -n option tells netstat to display numbers in its output, not the names of machines and protocols, and instead shows IP addresses and TCP or UDP port numbers. The -a indicates to display all connections and listening ports. The -o option tells netstat to show the processID number of each program interacting with a TCP or UDP port. If, instead of TCP and UDP, you are in interested in ICMP, netstat can be run as follows:

C:\> netstat -s -p icmp

3.   This indicates that the command will return statistics (-s) of the ICMP protocol. Although not as detailed as the TCP and UDP output, users can see if a machine is sending frequent and unexpected ICMP traffic on the network. Some backdoors and other malware communicate using the payload of ICMP Echo messages, the familiar and innocuous-looking ping packets seen on most networks periodically.

4.  Like WMIC, the netstat command also lets us run it every N seconds. But, instead of using the WMIC syntax of "/every:[N]", users simply follow their netstat invocation with a space and an integer. Thus, to list the TCP and UDP ports in use on a machine every 2 seconds, users can run:

C:\> netstat -na 2

HOW DO U FIND IF YOUR PC IS HACKED?- PART 4

OPENFILES COMMAND

1.  Many Windows administrators are unfamiliar with the powerful openfiles command built into Windows. As its name implies, this command shows all files that are opened on the box, indicating the process name interacting with each file. It's built into modern versions of Windows, from XP Pro to Vista. Like the popular ls of command for Linux and Unix, it'll show administrators all open files on the machine, giving the process name and full path for each file. Unlike lsof, however, it doesn't provide many more details, such as process ID number, user number and other information.

2.  Considering the volume of information it gathers, it's no surprise that the openfiles command is a performance hog. Thus, the accounting associated with

openfiles is off by default, meaning users can't pull any data from this command until it is turned on. This function can be activated by running:

C:\> openfiles /local on

3.  Users will need to reboot, and when the system comes back, they will be able to run the openfiles command as follows:

C:\> openfiles /query /v

4.  This command will show verbose output, which includes the user account that each process with an open file is running under. To get an idea of what malware has been installed, or what an attacker may be doing on a machine,users should look for unusual or unexpected files, especially those associated with unexpected local users on the machine.

5.   When finished with the openfiles command, its accounting functionality can be shut off and the system returned to normal performance by running the following command and rebooting:

C:\> openfiles /local off

HOW DO U FIND IF YOUR PC IS HACKED?- PART 3

1.  While WMIC is a relatively new command, let's not lose site of some useful older commands. One of my favourites is the venerable "net" command. Administrators can use this to display all kinds of useful information. For example, the "net user" command shows all user accounts defined locally on the machine. The "net localgroup" command shows groups, "net localgroup administrators" shows membership of the administrators group and the "net start" command shows running services.

2.  Attackers frequently add users to a system or put their own accounts in the administrators groups, so it's always a good idea to check the output of these commands to see if an attacker has manipulated the accounts on a machine. Also, some attackers create their own evil services on a machine, so users should be on the lookout for them.

More here.....

HOW DO U FIND IF YOUR PC IS HACKED?- PART 2

1.    WMIC stands for Windows Management Instrumentation Command-line It lets administrative users access all kinds of detailed information about a Windows machine, including detailed attributes of thousands of settings and objects. WMIC is built into Windows XP Professional, Windows 2003 and Windows Vista.

C:\> wmic process

2.    When you run this command, the output may not be an easy to understand format but the same can be formatted in several different ways, but two of the most useful for analysing a system for compromise are the "list full" option, which shows a huge amount of detail for each area of the machine a user is interested in, and the "list brief" output, which provides one line of output per report item in the list of entities, such as running processes, autostart programs and available shares. For example, we can look at a summary of every running process on a machine by running:

C:\> wmic process list brief

3.   That command will show the name, process ID and priority of each running process, as well as other less-interesting attributes.

C:\> wmic process list full

4.   This command shows all kinds of details, including the full path of the executable associated with the process and its command-line invocation. When

investigating a machine for infection, an administrator should look at each process to determine whether it has a legitimate use on the machine, researching unexpected or unknown processes using a search engine.

5.   Beyond the process alias, users could substitute startup to get a list of all auto-start programs on a machine, including programs that start when the system boots up or a user logs on, which could be defined by an auto-start registry key or folder:

C:\> wmic startup list full

6.   A lot of malware automatically runs on a machine by adding an auto-start entry alongside the legitimate ones which may belong to antivirus tools and various system tray programs. Users can look at other settings on a machine with WMIC by replacing "startup" with "QFE" (an abbreviation which stands for Quick Fix Engineering) to see the patch level of a system, with "share" to see a list of Windows file shares made available on the machine and with "useraccount" to see detailed user account settings.

7.   A handy option within WMIC is the ability to run an information-gathering command on a repeated basis by using the syntax "/every:[N]" after the rest of the WMIC command. The [N] here is an integer, indicating that WMIC should run the given command every [N] seconds. That way, users can look for changes in the settings of the system over time, allowing careful scrutiny of the output. Using this function to pull a process summary every 5 seconds, users could run:

C:\> wmic process list brief /every:1

Hitting CTRL+C will stop the cycle.

More good examples here

HOW DO U FIND IF YOUR PC IS HACKED?- PART 1

1.   We all keep ourselves worried over issues pertaining to our PC security including issues like if or not it is a zombie or if the same is already a compromised one etc. But how would you find the answer to these......call an expert and pay from your pocket? NO....the answer is MS it self...yesss!!....Microsoft Windows has a series of commands with the help of which a normal PC user would be able to find out the answers.....

2.   Following are the list of commands which would be used

WMIC Command

            - C:\> wmic process

            - C:\> wmic process list brief

- C:\> wmic process list full

- C:\> wmic startup list full

- C:\> wmic QFE list full

- C:\> wmic process list brief /every:1

The net Command

-         net localgroup

-         net localgroup administrators

Openfiles Command

          - C:\> openfiles /local on

Netstat Command

-         C:\> netstat –nao

-         C:\> netstat -s -p icmp

-         C:\> netstat -na 2

Find Command

For more details on these commands...click here....

Beware of 'Radioactive' Emails

1. Japan has been struck with the worst ever crisis in all aspects of human lives,infrastructure damage,economy slowdown and sadly the list goes on.....now to add to worries this is being exploited by criminals seeking access to your personal online information.

2.  Spam emails titled, “Japan Nuclear Radiation Leakage and Vulnerability Analysis,”claiming to have a detailed reports on the nuclear radiation being emitted from the Fukushima-1 nuclear power plant are being circulated across under the false origin from Office of Nuclear Security and Incident Response with the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission.The alleged nuclear report is included in a Microsoft Excel file attached to the email.

3.   Now anyone actually wanting to know what course of events took place might be allured to open the Excel file, but the file is corrupted. Opening it exposes users to a bug that allows a hacker to remotely exploit an Adobe Flash vulnerability and execute malicious code on the victim’s computer.Rest can be easily then taken control by the back end criminal.....

4.   Now aren't we seeing a number of cases coming up in form of hacker trying to remotely exploit an Adobe Flash vulnerability

.......too many have come up in past 2-3 years.......infact the case of SHADOWS IN THE CLOUD & TRACKING GHOSTNET were largely based on this......so whats the message.....BEWARE...keep yourself updated of such spams.....keep your antivirus updated

Revenge : YouTube Style

1. Now this one is really good....we already know that IT has revolutionized our lives in so many aspects...all aspects like banking,office work,exchanging mails,,,blogging.....making a social networking identity....keeping updates etc etc...but how many thought out the way to take REVENGE in such a effective manner that the culprit bows down...and pleads GUILTY....GUILTY..... 

2. An original lift from http://www.securitynewsdaily.com is putup below for details.....

“A computer thief in Boston learnt the hard way that performing an embarrassing victory dance is not the best way to celebrate your crime.

After his MacBook Air laptop was stolen two months ago, Bentley University freshman Mark Bao took digital revenge, accessing a cloud server on which his computer’s data was stored to identify the culprit who’d taken his computer, Gawker reported.

According to messages posted on Bao’s Twitter account, Bao used the backup server Backblaze to download the thief’s Safari Web browsing history and Facebook profile.

The sweet revenge, however, came when Bao found a video the thief had made of himself dancing to the Travis Porter song “Make it Rain.” Bao uploaded the video to YouTube with the title “Don’t steal computers belonging to people who know how to use computers.”

The video, posted on March 19, quickly became a viral hit, and has been viewed more than 376,000 times. “Come on, if you’re about to record a video of yourself dancing on a stolen laptop, at least be good at dancing!” Bao wrote on Twitter on March 19.

From here, the story of savvy techie versus celebrating crook takes an unexpected turn. Embarrassed that his dancing routine was made public and open to ridicule, the thief returned Bao’s laptop to the police and wrote an email to Bao expressing his regret and asking for the video to be taken down.

In an email the thief wrote to Bao, which Bao then posted on Reddit.com, the crook said, “I know I am in no position for asking you for favors but Can [sic] you please put down the videos that you have put up of me. I know what I did was wrong and if I was a different person fine leave it up but I do have two Professional jobs that iif [sic] something like that gets leak I can get in more [sic] trouble and be more embarrass [sic] as well.”


3. So what does the episode mean…we should all start taking backups in cloud…or do we start using Backblaze or….or….or what?....the best way to keep out from this …is to KEEP A CLOSE TAG OF YOU LAPTOP……    Thanks http://www.securitynewsdaily.com

The weak password problem : Now solved????

1.    We are part of the first phase of IT revolution across the globe where every thing is happening....methods to secure...methods to hack....stronger and powerful servers....patching vulnerabilities....fighting malware....analysing stuxnets genre...and what not....every thing is happening.....now the following text (org from http://lanl.arxiv.org/abs/1103.6219) opens another dimension to make the passwords secure.....

"Vulnerabilities related to weak passwords are a pressing global economic and security issue. We report a novel, simple, and effective approach to address the weak password problem. Building upon chaotic dynamics, criticality at phase transitions, CAPTCHA recognition, and computational round-off errors we design an algorithm that strengthens security of passwords. The core idea of our method is to split a long and secure password into two components. The first component is memorized by the user. The second component is transformed into a CAPTCHA image and then protected using evolution of a two-dimensional dynamical system close to a phase transition, in such a way that standard brute-force attacks become ineffective. We expect our approach to have wide applications for authentication and encryption technologies."

2.    Thanks http://lanl.arxiv.org

How to Disable/Enable Use of USB Storage Devices in Windows

 1.         How often in office and home, we desire to lock our USB drives from not being used by the regular circle around to avoid any compromise on data.I m sure its many a time....either we resort to keeping the 3 level regular strong password option or try out some third party USB Blocker option or more simply leave to GOD and trust.But their is a way out from this...and a real easy one to atleast defy the circle with a small trick....it goes this way.....

2.         The situation to block the USB will fall in either of the categories :

(a)        USB storage device is not installed in system

(b)        USB storage device is already installed in system

CASE -1 : USB STORAGE DEVICE IS NOT INSTALLED IN SYSTEM

- Type %windir%\inf in Explorer address bar or RUN dialog box and press Enter. It'll open "inf" folder.

-  Now look for following 2 files:

usbstor.inf

usbstor.pnf

3. Now to change their user permissions setting Right-click on each file and select "Properties". Goto "Security" tab and select the desired user or group in "Group or user names" list which you want to restrict from using USB drives. Now in "Permissions for Users" list, click on "Deny" checkbox next to "Full control" option and then click on OK.

 NOTE : - In Windows Vista, click on "Edit" button after selecting the user or group in "Group or user names" list and then again select the same user or group in new dialog box. Now you can click on "Deny" checkbox.

4. That's it. Now users will not be able to install any USB storage device in system.

CASE 2 : IF THE USB STORAGE DEVICE IS ALREADY INSTALLED IN SYSTEM

5.    Type regedit in the run taskbar and reach at :

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\UsbStor

6. In right-side pane, change value of "Start" to 4

7. Now whenever a user will attach a USB storage device which is already installed in system, Windows will not detect it and it'll not be shown in My Computer.

NOTE: If you want to revert it back to default, then change the value of "Start" to 3.