Null Byte: Page 118

Reverse shells are useful for issuing commands to a remote client when the client is behind something such as a NAT. You might say, "But can't a normal shell or simple SSH tunnel do the same thing?". No, it can't. All over the internet I see a lot of confusion regarding the difference between a normal shell and a reverse shell. Let's clear this up before we get started.

I will not go into some time-waster of a story about how I came to build this app. It was a prerequisite in a bigger project I am still tinkering with from time to time.

VNC is a great protocol that you can use on Windows and Linux machines to remotely control computers. This is useful if you need to control your computer when away from home, help your grandma check her email, or help a client with a disk cleanup. VNC is secure in the sense that it requires authentication in order to make the connection, but after that, the data is sent over the internet unencrypted. This means that an attacker could sniff your traffic and snoop everything that's going on. They...

Only so much data can be passed through the network and to your computer's networking interfaces. This is limited by the amount of bandwidth you have. The more bandwidth you have, the faster your network connections will be. Not only this, but your transfers will be more parallel and distributed so that all of your speed isn't taken up by one transfer. When all of your bandwidth is sapped and unable to be used, this is called a denial of service, or a DOS.

So to refresh my mind I read the wiki article on One Time Pads (OTP for short) and it said some stuff about the message being encoded using modular addition bit by bit from the key. It is effectively secure when the key is the same length or longer than the plaintext.

Hi again,

Intro

If you've ever heard software piracy terminology being discussed, I'm sure the term KeyGens came up. KeyGens is short for key generator, which is a program that exploits algorithmic faults in software by generating software license keys that appear to be genuine. Normally used as a technique to protect the source code software and prevent piracy, a key generator exploits the key algorithm to effectively nullify the need for any software licenses. For example, we must try to find patterns in the...

So, I am not going to get too technical here, this is an impromptu response for Alex's "Looking for Contributions" post.

With the purchase of my latest computer, installing Linux turned into a nightmare from Hell. The graphics drivers are probably the biggest issue that anyone with a newer computer will run into when installing Linux. AMD and NVIDIA are the dominant ones on the market, both of which have awful support.

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Haven't you ever wanted to live in a futuristic home? I think that homes are headed towards an era where they will be controlled by our computers and smartphones. No longer will you have to find your keys to unlock your door, or wait until you get home to monitor your security, because X10 is here.

Last Friday's mission was to accomplish solving HackThisSite, basic mission 8. This meant that we had to learn some more basic Unix commands.

Hardware hacks are something I feel we don't get enough of at Null Byte, so today I figured I would introduce a fun one. I've always been a curious hardware hacker. Taking things apart and learning how their internals work has always been a part of my nature. Quite some years ago, my father showed me a really cool trick on how to hack normal radios to scan frequencies that are normally non-listenable. This little hack allowed us to scan frequencies belonging to law enforcement, and even...

We love tearing apart security here at Null Byte. Several years back, upon returning items to Wal-Mart due to a malfunction, I noticed something very peculiar about the way their overall procedure goes. I brought the item up to the desk, and the woman asked if it didn't work, which I responded affirmatively. Without a moment's notice, she takes it right off to the defective items area and asks if I would like cash or store credit.

Having bills to pay is one of the worst parts of life, especially around the holidays. And if you're extremely unlucky, you might also have to pay some hefty medical bills. This can put a heavy damper on plans, wants and needs. What's worse? The people that you owe money to are pushy and always bother you to pay in a more timely fashion, or worse, pay bigger premiums.

When you buy computer parts, it can be a tough decision where you want to put all of your hard earned dollars into. Not only that, but when you buy a top of the line component, 3 months later (at most), your hardware will likely be outdated. This puts consumers like us in a bit of a pickle when it comes to purchasing, especially on a tight budget.

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.

Lots of people are going to be getting the latest iOS devices this holiday season. But what good is a portable device if you don't hack it? Jailbreaking on the latest stock iOS, version 4.3.5, is a bit of a trivial endeavor. Not many people know how to downgrade from this firmware to a firmware that can be jailbroken (pre-iOS 5). If you want the added functionality and the complete control over your device that comes with jailbreaking, then read on.

Skyrim is a time consuming game. I know I'm not alone in saying I constantly find myself looking for more time in the day. There is never enough time to read the books I want to read, or learn what I want to learn, or play the games that I want to play.

Beware, the code is quite ratty. A goal in this version was to be able to update/add commands without having to restart the bot. Mission accomplished.

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 said...

hey everyone. I am pretty new in the area of hacking and protection against hacking so forgive my ignorance if i say something obvious. i went through this forum and the blog and saw some great posts on staying safe in the cyber world, but does anyone have some tips on how to beef up my anonymity and protection on a mac? I dont need to drop off the grid, but i want to be able to hid my ip if needed and have a very secure firewall and i dont know what else. i would like to keep my footprint as...

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Hello all,

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.

Nearly everyone has the capacity to be a cheater. Sometime or another, all Xbox users have yearned to get their gamerscore to unimaginable thresholds—for bragging and egotistical purposes. I can relate to this desire. However, I also don't want to mod my gamerscore, because it's just unfair and not nearly as much fun as doing it the honest way. To me, it's synonymous to entering the cheats into a game after you've beaten it. Cheats can add new life into a game once you're done, but since the...

Gamers like myself who have switched back and forth between Skyrim on PC and Xbox lack the ability to share game saves. This really sucks. I love playing Skyrim on a console. It's a very comfortable, easy and relaxed gaming experience. You don't have to worry about your frame rate being optimized, or wrist pains from using a keyboard. However, gaming on the PC can allow you to use texture enhancing mods and get an overall smoother experience due to a lack in glitches and bugs that plague the...

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.

With a lot of Null Byters playing around with Linux because of its excessive use in the hacking world, some of you are bound to run into some trouble with the installation at some point or another. If you make a mistake, or you're intimidated by the wonky-looking installation screen, you may want to just stick with Windows. However, you may notice it can be hard to go back once you've crossed a certain point in the installation. Your Windows installation may be broken or unbootable.

Many users of the virtualization software VirtualBox may have noticed that the USB system has been pretty buggy for quite a long time. I've had my USB randomly duck out on me way too many times to count. This can really be difficult to deal with when you require access to the devices and files from the host system.

The days of entering left, right, left, right, up, down, up, down, a, b to cheat your way through a video game are long gone. With achievements and trophies in existence, game developers have, for the most part, removed cheats from video games.

How to Crack Passwords Faster by Putting Your GPU to Work with HashcatSecurity on the internet is always changing. Not too long ago, having a 10 character password meant that you were safe from all forms of hash cracking. Hash cracking is when you take a string of characters that have been passed through a cryptographic hash and try to reverse them. The normal processors that are housed inside of our computer cases are general purpose. The processors are not meant for handling complex math and...

I can't believe it, but I've actually read about dozens of people getting their iTouch, iPhone, or iPad stuck in a bricked recovery loop and then going out to buy a new one. This is overly unnecessary. When it gets stuck in the recovery loop, some people mistake themselves by thinking that it is impossible to get the device back into DFU (Device Firmware Upgrade) mode. Getting the device back into DFU mode would at least allow us to jailbreak the device, essentially bringing it back from its...

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.

Hello all!

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.

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.

I've decided that when I enter college I want to major in Computer Science and Computer Security. What programming languages should I learn before it becomes too late. I am already taking Java fyi.