2011's The Artist was the first silent film to win an Academy Award since 1927. It was old school versus new school, and it won in unprecedented fashion. You don't have to be a hipster to appreciate silent films, and when it comes to Halloween, being a silent film actor makes ...more
Welcome back, my hacker wannabees! Most of my recent posts have addressed using Metasploit’s Meterpreter and what we can do once we have embedded it on the victim’s system. This includes remotely installing a keylogger, enabling the webcam, enabling the microphone and recordi ...more
I recently wrote about Twitter's super now app called Vine, which lets people create 6 second video clips that can be embedded in a tweet. Those videos have their own proprietary extension, but if you want to turn those 6 second videos into an animated GIF, you can now do so t ...more
First off, I would like to say two things. One, this is not for beginners; if you don't feel that you understand this how-to at all, do not try it. Second, never ever install random software or change settings if you do not trust the source. If I haven't scared you yet, here ...more
Apple's Messages app already has a ton of great features, from audio message transcriptions to message editing and screen effect triggers. But some important new features and changes are included in the latest software updates for iPhone, iPad, and Mac that make Messages even ...more
Apple's first big iOS 17 point update for iPhone just came out, and it includes some of the features initially planned for the iOS 17.0 release last September. But there's much more to iOS 17.1 than that — exciting new features and changes are hiding within Books, Music, Stand ...more
If you haven't noticed yet, there are a lot of new features hiding in your iPhone's Messages app, and some of them are things users have been requesting for a long time. While iMessage is getting a lot of attention by letting us edit and unsend messages, it's only just the sta ...more
SharePlay is arguably one of the most significant features to hit FaceTime since group calls, and it's still hard to find apps that support shared experiences in FaceTime. Apple does list a few apps, but there is no official index of all the apps with SharePlay integration. Th ...more
The benefit of going all-in on the Apple ecosystem is that your stuff is connected across all of your Apple products. That said, I really don't need every app I download on my iPhone appearing on my iPad, and vice versa. That's why addressing this setting is crucial for mainta ...more
PirateBox is a great way to communicate with others nearby when cellular and Wi-Fi networks aren't available. With it, you can anonymously share any kind of media or document and even talk to one another by voice — without being online. However, it needs a Raspberry Pi, which ...more
If you're trying to learn a new skill, you wouldn't want to waste your time learning from someone with sub-par experience. No, you'd want to learn from the very best of the best to ensure you're getting a quality education. The minds behind Big Think Edge get this, which is w ...more
While conducting an OSINT investigation, it's important to be able to pull in information based on any clue you uncover. In particular, license plate information can turn up everywhere, from photos to live data to on your own street. You could use that data to find the VIN, se ...more
If you've ever wanted to track down the source of a Wi-Fi transmission, doing so can be relatively easy with the right equipment. Using a directional Wi-Fi antenna and Wireshark, we can create a display filter to target any device in range to plot the signal strength on a gra ...more
With everyone sheltering at home, gaming is even more popular than ever. And it was already popular. In 2019, mobile gaming was valued at $64.4 billion, PC gaming brought in $29.6 billion, and on the desktop, $15.4 billion. There are now over 2.5 billion gamers on the planet. ...more
Facebook's mobile app lacks many features from the desktop site. Even if you open Facebook in your phone's browser and request the desktop version, all that does is basically resize the mobile app. But there's a simple workaround that will force Facebook to appear in all its d ...more
Copying and pasting is even more important on a phone since there's no mouse and keyboard. And like on a computer, copying is usually limited to one item at a time — but with the Samsung Keyboard app, you have the ability to copy multiple sets of text. Tap the ellipses (•••) ...more
MIT artificial intelligence researcher Lex Fridman recently asked SpaceX and Tesla founder Elon Musk possibly the best question he's ever been asked: What would he ask a hypothetical AGI system (an AI system with human-level intelligence and understanding) if he only had one q ...more
Hackers often find fascinating files in the most ordinary of places, one of those being FTP servers. Sometimes, luck will prevail, and anonymous logins will be enabled, meaning anyone can just log in. But more often than not, a valid username and password will be required. But ...more
With all the talk about privacy concerns recently, Google's name keeps coming up because they are a very data-driven company. As an Android user, they know basically everything about you based on your device usage. That can easily scare some people off who are worried about th ...more
Songs new and old are given a fresh purpose through the TikTok meme machine, but it can be tricky to figure out where a track originally comes from. Sure, you can tap the name of the song to see the source on TikTok, but if it were a snippet uploaded by someone other than the ...more
It seems like each day our phones become more integrated into our lives. School, work, shopping — so many tasks either require a phone or heavily benefit from one. But our phones are a double-edged sword that can easily distract us and harm our mental health as well. This is ...more
A lot of time can be wasted performing trivial tasks over and over again, and it's especially true when it comes to hacking and penetration testing. Trying different shells to own a target, and testing out privilege escalation commands afterward, can eat up a lot of time. Fort ...more
Sniffing packets over a network is an easy way for hackers to gather information on a target without needing to do much work. But doing so can be risky if sniffing packets on an untrusted network because a payload within the packets being captured could be executed on your sys ...more
Post-exploitation information gathering can be a long and drawn-out process, but it is an essential step when trying to pivot or establish advanced persistence. Every hacker should know how to enumerate a target manually, but sometimes it is worth it to automate the process. M ...more
Web application firewalls are one of the strongest defenses a web app has, but they can be vulnerable if the firewall version used is known to an attacker. Understanding which firewall a target is using can be the first step to a hacker discovering how to get past it — and wha ...more
We've all seen the login pages that allow you to log in to third-party accounts using your credentials from Facebook, Google, or Twitter. It saves you the trouble of creating another account and remembering more passwords — but it can also become a privacy and security issue, ...more
Smartphone gaming continues to improve with ever sharper displays and raw processing power to deliver console-quality graphics right in the palm of your hands. Nonetheless, you still stand to improve the gaming experience on any phone by adding the right accessories to the mix ...more
Christmas is just one week before Jan. 1. That means a lot of New Year's resolutions filled with promises to better ourselves with increased productivity, focus, and work ethics — but getting started can be challenging. Give the people in your life a leg up this holiday season ...more
Baby, it's cold outside, but, with some help from Snapchat augmented reality, Gucci is thawing our wintery hearths with a virtual trip to the tropics. On Wednesday, Snapchat launched a Portal Lens for Gucci designed to mirror the brand's Gift Giving advertising campaign featu ...more
If you're a beta tester, you know Apple released iOS 13.3 this week, bringing with it stability for multitasking as well as minor changes throughout the OS. It seems Apple doesn't want the rest of us to go without this critical patch, as the company releases iOS 13.2.2 today, ...more
So, someone on your shopping list has an iPhone. Lucky for you, Apple's line of smartphones are practically made for accessories. From AirPods to adapters, there's something for every iPhone user in your life. Are you feeling overwhelmed by the options? You've come to the righ ...more
Your phone is loaded with contacts you've collected over the years. They're an asset, and you should use your library of connections outside the confines of your mobile device. Luckily, your Pixel uses a standardized medium to store contacts that can be used by the likes of Li ...more
To be honest, the Mail app for iPhone had always been somewhat forgettable. It lacked many of the features that made third-party clients like Spark and Edison better, but with iOS 13, the gap between Mail and its competitors is much smaller. Apple updated the layout and added ...more
Figuring out the Wi-Fi at a new location is challenging enough. Connecting to said Wi-Fi should be as easy as possible. Unless someone you know is already connected on their iPhone, you're probably used to the usual routine of heading to the Wi-Fi page in the Settings app to g ...more
Are you here yet? When will you arrive? How long until you get here? How far are you? Hurry up! When you're meeting up with someone or a group of people, you may get flooded with messages like that. Instead of trying to answer them mid-trip, you can send them your status from ...more
Facebook Messenger Lite is more than just a battery-friendly version of the full-fledged Messenger app for Android. It's still packing some pretty neat features and it's so much snappier than its bloated counterpart. All of the essentials are present, down to the ability to gi ...more
The streaming content vision from Magic Leap recently underwent a quiet but major update, courtesy of AT&T. Previously, Magic Leap's retail and 5G partner AT&T made its DirecTV Now streaming television service available to Magic Leap One users. But now that the company has la ...more
You may have recently seen a plethora of Instagram users, including celebrities and politicians, sharing a screenshot declaring that the platform will implement a new "rule" where it would own and could use your photos and videos however it wishes. The screenshots are part of ...more
For the first time in a while, the battle between Samsung and Apple is really interesting. Unlike previous years where the choice for smaller hands was limited to the Galaxy S series, this year, there's an option for Galaxy Note users. Both sides of the aisle have their best o ...more
The latest immersive production from Magic Leap Studios finally got its debut on Monday at Siggraph, during which the company also released the app to the general public, so we took it for a spin. It's called Undersea, and its goal is to submerge you in a virtual environment ...more
With a tiny computer, hackers can see every website you visit, exploit services on the network, and break into your Wi-Fi router's gateway to manipulate sensitive settings. These attacks can be performed from anywhere once the attacker's computer has been connected to the rout ...more
Some of the Pixel 3's coolest features are software related, which means you can get many of them on non-Pixel devices. "Flip to Shhh" is a perfect example of this. It lets you quickly put your phone into do not disturb mode by placing it face down, and this can be replicated ...more
When researching a person using open source intelligence, the goal is to find clues that tie information about a target into a bigger picture. Screen names are perfect for this because they are unique and link data together, as people often reuse them in accounts across the in ...more
If you're a Game of Thrones fan and would like to watch the latest season offline on your iPhone, or if you need to catch up on previous seasons, there is no current support on HBO Go or HBO Now to download episodes for offline viewing. But that's only halfway true because the ...more
With any password manager, the only password you need to remember is the master password that locks the vault from both hackers and the company. This makes the master password very important. But what happens if you forget this password? Well, LastPass has you covered. It isn ...more
On Yelp, you have the option to check in to a business you're visiting. For you, broadcasting who you're with and where you're at is fun for social purposes, but for business owners, you're basically giving them free publicity. Well, almost free publicity. Since there's incent ...more
Instagram wants to bridge the gap between advertising and shopping for a more central buying experience. The app has long been a platform for advertisements, with both companies and creators using it as an outlet to link to products, so it's only natural for Instagram to allow ...more
Current-generation mobile augmented reality apps offer users numerous opportunities to punch up photos and videos with 3D content, but there's surprisingly few options for users to express themselves using virtual characters. A new app called Puppetoon from indie developer Cu ...more
Now that the dust has finally settled on Microsoft's big HoloLens 2 announcement, the company is circling back to offer more granular detail on some aspects of the device we still don't know about. Aside from making some team members accessible for interviews, the company has ...more
Android 9.0 Pie moved the status bar clock from the right corner to the left to accommodate phones with notches, but there's one major downside for Samsung users: since no Galaxy phones have a notch, all this did was take away space for the notification icons that would otherw ...more
With the number of web applications out there today, it comes as no surprise that there are just as many vulnerabilities waiting for hackers to discover. Finding those vulnerabilities can be a difficult task, but there are plenty of tools available to make the process easier. ...more
Samsung isn't set to reveal its latest and greatest — the Galaxy S10 line — until February 20, but that hasn't stopped leaks from giving us an early taste. While we already know what the rumored devices will probably look like, we now have access to their wallpapers as well. A ...more
The ability to stay organized and be resourceful with data gathered from recon is one of the things that separates the true hackers from the script kiddies. Metasploit contains a built-in database that allows for efficient storage of information and the ability to utilize that ...more
In about 27% of all car crashes, someone was using their cell phone. You may think texting is the big problem here, but many fail to realize that even the smallest smartphone interaction could spell disaster. Thankfully, Google Maps has rolled out an overdue feature that'll he ...more
One of the ultimate goals in hacking is the ability to obtain shells in order to run system commands and own a target or network. SQL injection is typically only associated with databases and their data, but it can actually be used as a vector to gain a command shell. As a les ...more
The idea of augmented reality isn't new, but the world of smartphones is looking to push it forward in a big way. As with any platform, both product demand and technological advancements have to catch up to the industry before it can become a viable solution for daily consumer ...more
Need a unique gift idea for the techy person in your life? Look no further than that phone they always have in their hand. There are plenty of great accessories, apps, subscriptions, and other smartphone-related goodies that will improve their quality of life, and thoughtful g ...more
In recent years, many software publishers have tried to sell the business community on remote meetings via VR, but if social media chatter is any indication, it hasn't taken off in a big way just yet. However, for some, the notion of holding remote meetings using augmented rea ...more
If you or someone you're shopping for has a newer iPhone model or an Android smartphone like the Galaxy Note 9 or Pixel 3, they come with wireless charging capabilities. Problem is, they don't come with wireless chargers. But there's no better time to snag one than on Black Fr ...more
Before you can dive into customizing your OnePlus 6T, you must take the initial step of unlocking the bootloader to gain the ability to install TWRP, Magisk, custom ROMs, and other mods. A bootloader is a program that starts up on a device that states what operating system it ...more