Null Byte News
Goodnight Byte: HackThisSite Walkthrough, Part 7 - Legal Hacker
Last Friday's mission was to accomplish solving HackThisSite, basic mission 8. This meant that we had to learn some more basic Unix commands.
Skyrim Hack: Get Whatever Items You Want By Hacking Your Game Save
Here's another Null Byte on hacking our Skyrim game saves. Some of the rarer items in Skyrim are really fun to play with. However, seeing as they are rare, you will probably not see all of the best weapons in the game. Null Byte doesn't take too kindly to games that don't give us the rarest items when we please. Let's beat this game into submission by hacking our game save files via hex editing.
News: Hack Your Computer's BIOS to Unlock Hidden Settings, Overclocking & More
Your BIOS, or Basic Input Output System, is the firmware on your motherboard responsible for initializing your computer's hardware when it is first powered on. It probes for video adapters, RAM, the whole works. The BIOS provides a small library of basic input/output functions used to operate and control the peripherals such as the keyboard, text display functions and so forth, and these software library functions are callable by external software such as the OS and system software within sai...
News: The Top 10 Must-Have Skyrim Mods
Skyrim really took the cake this year. With its awe-inspiring gameplay, much improved combat and leveling system, and a fresh new look, it's no wonder the game has already received a Game of the Year award. But for hardcore gamers, the fun may be over. You've played the game for thousands of hours, and have exhausted the entire game's main and auxiliary quests. You need more.
Community Byte: HackThisSite Walkthrough, Part 7 - Legal Hacker Training
Welcome to the seventh Community Byte for coding in Python and completing the challenges presented to us by HackThisSite. These sessions are created to bring our community together, to learn from each other, and grow together. Everyone is welcome, from novice programmers to aspiring hackers.
Goodnight Byte: HackThisSite Walkthrough, Part 6 - Legal Hacker Training
Friday's mission was to accomplish solving HackThisSite, basic mission 7, which required us to learn some basic Unix commands. If you have any prior experience using Unix commands, this should be a breeze for you if you sit and think for a second.
News: A Last Resort Method to Fix the Xbox 360 E74 Error (The Red Ring of Death)
I've come across a few very stubborn Xbox consoles in my day. A previous Null Byte demonstrated how to fix the Xbox with just eight pennies and some electrical tape. But if you've got one of those hell-born boxes that just refuses to be fixed in any way, shape, or form, there is always one last ditch approach. I'm talking about the infamous "towel trick". It works over 90% of the time, from my personal experience. Though, please note: This is only a temporary fix.
Community Byte: HackThisSite Walkthrough, Part 6 - Legal Hacker Training
Welcome to the sixth Community Byte for coding in Python and beating the challenges presented to us by HackThisSite. These sessions are created to bring our community together, to learn from each other, and essentially grow together. Everyone is welcome, from novice programmers to aspiring hackers.
Goodnight Byte: HackThisSite Walkthrough, Part 5 - Legal Hacker Training
Another great Community Byte in the bag! This week was really cool, especially with programming going on twice a week. We transitioned to the new times very smoothly with no one left behind, from what I can tell.
News: Weaknesses in GameStop's Rewards System Produces Free Game Rentals… Even Cash
Yes, you read the title correctly. GameStop has problems, and if you're lax in morals, you can take advantage of them for free games and cash. I'm bringing you all yet another exclusive Null Byte that falls into the fascinating category of life hacking.
Community Byte: HackThisSite Walkthrough, Part 5 - Legal Hacker Training
Welcome to the fifth Community Byte for coding in Python and beating the challenges given to us from HackThisSite. These sessions are created to bring our community together, to learn from each other, and essentially grow together. Everyone is welcome, from novice programmers to aspiring hackers—even people that are nearly computer illiterate.
Goodnight Byte: HackThisSite Walkthrough, Part 4 - Legal Hacker Training
Cheers to another completed Community Byte project! Things went well regarding timeliness and being friendly to the other coders and students. If you've got ideas for our next mission, or an idea for a tutorial, submit them to me. Friday, our mission was to take out HackThisSite, basic mission 5. This mission focused on JavaScript, again. This time there is a little bit more security in place.
News: Tux the Origami Penguin
Tux the Linux penguin, made from origami sonobe units. Can anybody figure out how to assemble?
Community Byte: HackThisSite Walkthrough, Part 4 - Legal Hacker Training
Another Community Byte announcement from Null Byte! The Community Byte projects serve to teach people in a co-operative, hands-on manner. Learning from experience and immersing yourself in a subject is the best way to learn something foreign to you. In our sessions, we have started to both code and complete HTS missions. There is something for everyone here, so make sure you join in on the fun learning experience.
Goodnight Byte: HackThisSite Walkthrough, Part 3 - Legal Hacker Training
Welcome to the Goodnight Byte for HackThisSite, Basic Mission 4. In Friday's session, we tackled some coding in Gobby. Nothing special, just a few modifications to the NullBot script we made a few session ago, and some education on regular expressions. Apart from coding, we did our scheduled HackThisSite mission. We had to take on some JavaScript, which was a new thing for Null Byte. This mission taught us about client-side HTML manipulation through JavaScript injections. This just means that...
News: 12 Easy Exploits to Raise Thief Skills in Skyrim
Here is the final part in Null Byte's series on mastering the skills in The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. We have already covered the slick and brutal methods to raise our Spellcasting and Combative skills. Skyrim's intelligent new leveling system has trumped the former methods of spamming repeated moves to raise levels quickly. Rather than casting a spell, or jumping up and down constantly, the new system requires that we use our skills in practice to get experience for them. This causes leveling...
News: 9 Easy Exploits to Raise Combat Skills in Skyrim
Skyrim is an enormous RPG recently released by Bethesda. After many long years of waiting (I had 1000's of hours clocked into its predecessor, Oblivion, way back in 8th grade) the game is finally out and it surpasses everyone's expectations—save for removing custom spell crafting... Why, Bethesda?
News: Stop Internet Censorship
If the SOPA bill passes, people won't even be able to do things like cover a song on YouTube. Don't let this bill pass. If your ISP is blocking the petition (most are) then, please, tunnel your traffic through another country and continue to sign up. This affects all users of the internet in a negative way. This bill will pass unless it is stopped by the people.
News: Get YouTube's New Layout Today with a Simple JavaScript Hack
As many of you may have noticed, nearly every Google product (i.e. Gmail, Google search, etc.) has gone through a bit of a makeover since the release of Google+. Big blocky buttons and enormous font sizes are apparently the thing of the future, and with a cool JavaScript hack, you can have a goofy YouTube, too! Now, I'm actually just being a bit facetious, the new YouTube is really the only thing that I like out of all of Google's recent redesigns. It looks pretty sleek.
News: 18 Easy Exploits to Raise Spellcasting Skills in Skyrim
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim set off a bang in the video game world this month. It will likely be video game of the year a few times over. Skyrim is another part to a series set in the fantasy world of Tamriel, a world filled with mystical creatures, folklore, and even its own history. It's quite the beatuiful and immersive experience. If you have not picked up the game yet, please do (my fiancée even plays!). Also, make sure to buy it new, so the hard working coders at Bethesda get the money ...
Community Byte: HackThisSite Walkthrough, Part 3 - Legal Hacker Training
Welcome to another Community Byte announcement from Null Byte! The goal of the Community Bytes is to teach people in a co-operative, hands-on manner. Learning from experience and immersing yourself in a subject is the best way to learn something foreign to you, so that is exactly what we do! In our sessions, we have started to both code and complete HTS missions. This means that there is something for everyone here, so make sure you join us.
News: Hacking
I am looking to learn how to hack. I have basic knowledge to computers so any help will be appreciated.
Goodnight Byte: HackThisSite Walkthrough, Part 2 - Legal Hacker Training
Welcome to the closing of the second HackThisSite and programming Community Byte. First and foremost, I would like to ask that people start showing up on time to the Community Bytes. If you need help converting your time zone to PST, go to Time Zone Converter. When users do not show up on time, we have to go backwards and catch everybody up. This wastes time and will also make other users' experience less enjoyable when they have to watch and listen to the same thing 100 times. Punctuality as...
News: Lightweight Programs You Should Use for a Faster Linux
Some people are what is labeled a power user. I am one of these people. No matter how fast I get my system, or how quick of programs I have, it is never good enough. There is always at least one program that I could swap out for a more advanced, text-based counterpart that increases performance just a bit. Luckily, you don't have to use text-based programs without graphical user interfaces to get blazing fast speeds on Linux. There are tons of open source alternatives to the mainstream progra...
News: Performance Hacks & Tweaks for Linux
If you have made the switch from Windows to Linux, I want to congratulate you in advance. I'm sure you have noticed a huge performance increase when using Linux over other operating systems. This is only half the battle, though! Most users who are new to Linux end up using Ubuntu. I have no gripes with Ubuntu, but I do not agree with their philosophy. It almost mimics Windows. Ubuntu favors ease of use, and despite valiant efforts by the development team thus far (Ubuntu is crazy fast), all o...
Community Byte: HackThisSite Walkthrough, Part 2 - Legal Hacker Training
With the rather large success of the Community Byte activities, both programming and HackThisSite, I have decided to continue to do both activities every session! With that said, when programming sessions occur, they will be lead by Sol Gates in Gobby. Also, the programming mission will no longer be to code a tool, we have changed it to be even more "noob friendly". This means that instead of coding a tool, you will be walked through puzzles and challenges that must be solved by coding a scri...
News: introduction
i am stone taker and currently pursing b.sc computer science. i am from Africa.i want to to master become know programming very well especially c++;
Goodnight Byte: HackThisSite Walkthrough, Part 1 - Legal Hacker Training
Friday's Community Byte was weird. The intent was to do a HackThisSite mission, but upon time to begin, everyone in there was programming without my assistance, with the help of Sol Gates. This is great! It's really awesome that everyone enjoys programming that much and will make the effort to learn even when I am not present. So, a tip of my hat to Mr. Sol Gates and the rest of you fine people.
News: WebChat for Null Byte IRC!
Our friends over at DarcHoods have made our IRC available via a web interface, so no additional software is necessary!
Community Byte: HackThisSite Walkthrough, Part 1 - Legal Hacker Training
Welcome to another Community Byte announcement! For the past few Community Bytes, we coded an IRC bot, and hacked it. Then, we created a web-based login bruteforcer! This week we are going to start something a bit different. We are going to start going through the missions at HackThisSite one-by-one each week, starting with the basic missions.
Goodnight Byte: Coding a Web-Based Password Cracker in Python
Our mission for this week's Community Byte was to create a Python program to crack web-based passwords, like the ones you would see on an email or router login. I wanted it to be universal in the sense that it could be easily modified and adapted to another website just by changing a few variables. That was a success! Even though people weren't on time to the coding session, everything went well.
News: Null Community
I have signed up but I would like to be part of the Null Byte community. Can someone shove me in that direction?
Secure Your Computer, Part 4: Use Encryption to Make a Hidden Operating System
This is Null Byte's fourth part in a series about fully securing our computers (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3). In our last Null Byte, we went over how to encrypt an entire operating system to protect our data, however, this doesn't fully protect us. In the case of legal extortion, the government can actually make you give up your cryptographic key to your computer so that they can look through it.
Secure Your Computer, Part 3: Encrypt Your HDD/SSD to Prevent Data Theft
Welcome to Part 3 in my series on protecting your computer from prying eyes (Part 1, Part 2). In today's segment, we will be going over drive encryption using the TrueCrypt program on Windows OS. Drive encryption is a technique that masks your data with a cryptographic function. The encryption header stores the password that you have entered for the archive, which allows the data to be reversed and read from. Encrypted data is safe from anyone who wants to read it, other than people with the ...
Secure Your Computer, Part 2: Password-Protect the GRUB Bootloader on Dual-Booted PCs
There is a near-infinite amount of ways a computer can be broken into. But that does not mean that there isn't a reason to secure our computers as best as we possibly can. It's like the principles of a secure house. Which are the most secure houses? The ones with locks and advanced alarms, obviously, but not for the reasons people normally think.
Secure Your Computer, Part 1: Password-Protect your BIOS Boot Screen
Password strength and encryption are important things when it comes to computers. A password is the entire security of your computer, and OS passwords are not hard to break. Most users believe that if you have a password on your computer via the OS, that you are safe. This is not true at all, sadly.
Community Byte: Coding a Web-Based Password Cracker in Python
Welcome to another Community Byte announcement! In the past two sessions, we have coded an IRC bot in Python capable of issuing commands. Since it can issue commands and most of you are new to programming, that project will stay idle for a while. Other commands such as voice and half-op can be easily hacked in via common sense, even if you weren't there for that session.
Goodnight Byte: Hack Our IRC Bot to Issue Commands
Welcome to the second Goonight Byte! Our second coding session was kindly hosted by th3m, so props to him for letting this happen.
News: Complete Arch Linux Installation, Part 2: Graphical User Interface & Packages
Welcome to the second part of the Arch Linux installation tutorial! We are installing Arch because of the amount of users who want to learn how to get into Linux. Arch is a simple, minimalistic distro, designed not to hold the users hand, but to push them to know their system and customize it to the core. This will make you feel accomplished, as well as give you the extra edge of being knowledgeable of the GNU/Linux operating systems.
News: Complete Arch Linux Installation, Part 1: Install & Configure Arch
"How do I install Arch Linux?" That question was bound to come up eventually. And with me using Arch, it's no coincidence that all of you want to use it as well. Arch is arguably the best Linux distro available. Distros that come close are Gentoo and some aspects of Ubuntu, but Arch is meant for building your OS from the inside out. Arch is built around minimalism, so you won't get anything by default. It doesn't even come with sound!