Next to spam calls, few things are more annoying than being inundated with spam, scam, and smishing texts. Your iPhone's Messages app should be a place for your friends and family to stay in touch, not a minefield of phishing attacks, malicious links, and viruses. Luckily, the ...more
You may have heard of a signal jammer before, which usually refers to a device that blasts out a strong enough radio signal to drown out the reception of nearby devices like cell phones. Purpose-built jammer hardware is outright illegal in many countries. Still, Wi-Fi is vulne ...more
Earlier this month, Adam Cudworth, 19, launched a camera attached to a weather balloon into the edge of space. Battling tough winds, freezing temperatures, atmospheric pressure and tumbling speeds, the teenager from Worcestershire, England was able to capture these amazing pic ...more
On your iPhone, your phone number and Apple ID email address are the default ways in which somebody can contact you on FaceTime. While you can't remove your phone number as an option, you can withdraw your Apple ID email account. More importantly, you can add any other email a ...more
iOS 12 has a feature that lets you instantly share saved Wi-Fi passwords with other iPhone users, but it can be finicky when you're sharing with multiple people. Then there's an even more pressing question: How do you share your password with Android users? Thankfully, there's ...more
In the previous article, we learned how to set up our VPS, configure our PHP server, and developed an in-depth understanding of how the payload works. With all that taken care of, we can get into disguising our payload to appear as an image and crafting the note in the greetin ...more
The price of hacking Wi-Fi has fallen dramatically, and low-cost microcontrollers are increasingly being turned into cheap yet powerful hacking tools. One of the most popular is the ESP8266, an Arduino-programmable chip on which the Wi-Fi Deauther project is based. On this ine ...more
I've taken a few photography classes back in the day, so I'm pretty confident in my abilities with a DSLR, but my iPhone is a completely different story. Lighting makes all the difference, so unless you're outdoors in the sun, it's hard to take a good snapshot with a mobile. ...more
Smartphone users often wish for a privacy, where no one is able to poke his/her nose in their personal stuff. Unfortunately, none of the smartphones have been able to guard their privacy in this fashion. Smartphones usually come up with none or almost negligible built-in secur ...more
Welcome back, my novice hackers! This new series on Bluetooth hacking was inspired by a recent episode of Mr. Robot (my favorite TV show). In episode 6, Eliot hacked the bluetooth keyboard of the police office in order to hack the prison and release his nemesis, Vera. This is ...more
Snapchat is an app built on sending quick-to-disappear pictures to your friends and family. Sure, this is the primary function of the app, but sometimes users want longer-lasting Memories while interacting with Snapchat. While My Story allows snaps to stick around for 24 hours ...more
Apple's latest updates to its operating systems add another security feature to its Find My service, so you have an even better chance at locating your lost iPhone, iPad, or Mac should it ever happen. As long as you have the option enabled, you can leverage other Apple users' ...more
Those of us with girlfriends understand that in order for the relationship to run smoothly, you have to keep your woman happy and let her know that you're thinking of her—even when you're not. While hanging out with your bros, it can be easy to let your priorities, or your gi ...more
It's no secret that devices leak data, but sometimes they do so in ways you may not expect. Your phone, laptop, printer, and IOT devices leak Wi-Fi information that can (and is) used to track you. Today, we'll make a Wi-Fi probe logger with Probemon.py to track nearby devices ...more
Your iPhone has a safety feature that makes it easier to call 911 in the U.S. and other emergency services abroad. Instead of fumbling with your iPhone's dialer, you can call someone for help in various ways — with or without your hands. Emergency SOS has been around since iO ...more
Cellular carriers like to nickel-and-dime us out of every bit of money they can feasibly justify, so as consumers, we owe it to ourselves to make sure that we're getting our money's worth. There are several under-advertised freebies and discounts that come included with a con ...more
I know it's a very first-world problem, but I really can't stand it. Email was invented to speed up communications between people across the world, even just across the office, yet when I'm on my super awesome iPhone running iOS 7, I have to go back and forth between my galler ...more
Android is all about the fine details. You can make a little tweak here and a little tweak there and completely customize your experience to be exactly how you want it to be. Sure, you don't need to customize LED colors or screen record, but it's nice to know you can. Today, ...more
Whiteblock : A Whitestar skyblock survival map Video: . Intro : This map isn't about punishing the player with a cobblestone generator that malfunctions in the first day (there's one provided). Instead, it's about being able to make and find resources to create builds to popu ...more
There are three tiers to Android customization: things you can do by default, things you can do with ADB, and things you can do with root. While root is still pretty tricky to get, ADB mods just got a lot easier. Back in Android 9, Google added a feature that allowed you to w ...more
A PirateBox creates a network that allows users to communicate wirelessly, connecting smartphones and laptops even when surrounding infrastructure has been disabled on purpose or destroyed in a disaster. Using a Raspberry Pi, we will make a wireless offline server that hosts f ...more
Think back to when you last wanted to transfer some music or videos to your friend's smartphone and how difficult and slow it was. As powerful as our phones are, the default file sharing options are limited. There are, fortunately, some better options which make moving files e ...more
Who said you need a smartphone to use Snapchat? A new application in the Mac App Store, appropriately dubbed Snappy, allows you to send and receive Snapchats directly on your computer. Check out the guide below to learn how to go through all of your Snapchat stories, take and ...more
Electronic warfare tactics work by jamming, disrupting, or disabling the technology a target uses to perform a critical function, and IoT devices are especially vulnerable to attacks. Wireless security cameras like the Nest Cam are frequently used to secure critical locations, ...more
It seems that Facebook doesn't take rejection lightly. After being denied for a $3 billion buyout of Snapchat, Facebook-owned Instagram has updated their popular photo-sharing service with Instagram Direct—a new feature that allows users to send private photos/videos. While t ...more
In case you missed it, you don't have to chat one-on-one anymore in Snapchat. The company added group chats back in 2016, and they are increasingly gaining new features such as video and audio chats, so communicating Snapchat-style with all your friends at once is better than ...more
The latest update to iOS 10 brought with it a number of great new features. Of these, the one that will likely have the most impact on people's iOS experience in the long term are the new apps and stickers for iMessage. Stickers make up the vast majority of what you'll find i ...more
If you've ever used the Find My iPhone and Find My Friends apps in iOS 12 and below, you may be surprised to hear that those apps have joined forces in iOS 13. Now, instead of two separate apps, they're combined into one convenient package. But what does that mean for you and ...more
Facebook Messenger is getting ready to roll out a Snapchat-esque feature that will let users send messages that self-destruct after a certain amount of time, so you'll have an extra level of security when you need to send sensitive financial information or, more likely, risqué ...more
Each morning, we spend a significant portion of our time staring into the mirror. From choosing clothes and accessories to perfecting our hair, we try to make ourselves attractive. Yet catching others' attention doesn't have to rely on preening and primping. There's some truth ...more
Nowadays, even the dumbest thieves know that the first thing you should do after you steal a phone is turn on airplane mode. Not only does this make it harder for police to track the phone through cell tower triangulation, but it also disables security features the person you ...more
The Deauther Watch by Travis Lin is the physical manifestation of the Wi-Fi Deauther project by Spacehuhn, and it's designed to let you operate the Deauther project right from your wrist without needing a computer. That's pretty cool if you want to do all the interesting thing ...more
Because our smartphones are ever present, frequently used apps become the topic of conversation in social situations. This often leads to sharing app links via messages, either by copying/pasting an app's URL or sending it through the sharing menu. However, there's another way ...more
Ever watched Netflix on your phone only to realize an hour later that you forgot to turn Wi-Fi on? That's a whole lot of data used. If you've ever gone over your allotted mobile data limit, you know firsthand how costly your carrier's overage fees can truly be. From that poin ...more
Rumors about the 2022 iPhone series stirred well before the iPhone 13 models were even released. While Apple remains quiet on the next big iPhone, as it always does, we're seeing more and more leaks and reveals for the iPhone 14 series as we lead up to a likely fall release. ...more
Despite the security concerns that have plagued Facebook for years, most people are sticking around and new members keep on joining. This has led Facebook to break records numbers with over 1.94 billion monthly active users, as of March 2017 — and around 1.28 billion daily act ...more
In February of this year, the Higher Court of Berlin ruled that Facebook must follow strict German data protection laws, which Facebook's terms of services and privacy policies circumvent. It's been rulings like these and their call for internationally recognized rights to pr ...more
When joining a new network, computers use the Address Resolution Protocol to discover the MAC address of other devices on the same network. A hacker can take advantage of ARP messages to silently discover the MAC and IP address of network devices or actively scan the network w ...more
The most common Wi-Fi jamming attacks leverage deauthentication and disassociation packets to attack networks. This allows a low-cost ESP8266-based device programmed in Arduino to detect and classify Wi-Fi denial-of-service attacks by lighting a different color LED for each ty ...more
Identifying vulnerable devices and services on a target router can be difficult without leaving logs and other traces of an active attacker on the network. However, there is a way to covertly decrypt and view Wi-Fi activity without ever connecting to the wireless network. Whe ...more
It's becoming more and more apparent that Siri continually drops the ball when it comes to lock screen security. In the past, Siri was exploited in iOS 7.0.2 to send messages without needing a passcode. Then in iOS 7.1.1, Siri was use to bypass the lock screen again to access ...more
Giving up your Wi-Fi password can be giving up more control than you think. Because of the way Chromecast and other IoT devices communicate, anyone on the same Wi-Fi network as your device can often make it do whatever they want. With a script called "Cast All the Things," we ...more
Whether it's a short road trip or an 18-hour flight, our phones are now essential travel companions. No longer do we need a GPS unit, maps, cameras, camcorders, or even boarding passes. However, not all phones are created equal in this regard. Some are more suited for travelin ...more
One of the more competitive aspects to chat apps these days is customizability. It seems every messenger wants to offer the largest number of options for users to make the app feel like a truly personal experience. Telegram is no stranger to this customizability, offering tool ...more
One of the best reasons to enter Apple's ecosystem is iMessage, where you can communicate more securely with other Apple users and send and receive chats across all of your connected iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, and Mac devices. While those blue bubble conversations sync across d ...more
Smartphones are inherently bad for privacy. You've basically got a tracking device in your pocket, pinging off cell towers and locking onto GPS satellites. All the while, tracking cookies, advertising IDs, and usage stats follow you around the internet. So no, there's no such ...more
Every photo you take is brimming with metadata such as iPhone model, date and time, shooting modes, focal length, shutter speed, flash use, and geolocation information. Share these pictures with friends, family, or acquaintances via texts, emails, or another direct share metho ...more
Your email inbox is a treasure trove of personal data. The people you contact, your writing style, which messages you flag as spam — all of this information and more can be used to paint a clear picture of you. Google knows this as well as anybody, so they use this data to con ...more
Commenting on Facebook pictures is a commonality. But you may not want to share your private and personal pictures on Facebook. Maybe you just want a select few to comment on your photos. Fear no more, you can send your pics and get private comments using Google Photos. Some ...more
In recent years, unwanted calls have become a top priority for the FCC. In 2016, analysts estimated that US customers received over 2.4 billion robocalls per month. As a result, the FCC has provided carriers new tools to combat this problem. The Federal Communications Commiss ...more
Instagram's controversial terms of service update this past month has spurred an onslaught of dismay and anger from users of the popular photo-sharing social network. The specific set of the new terms that set off this firestorm basically said that businesses could use your up ...more
Samsung, like other OEMs, partners with third-party companies to include their apps on Galaxy devices. For example, Microsoft pays Samsung millions to pre-install certain Office apps. But one of these partners might not be on the up and up. Already know about Qihoo 360? Skip ...more
You probably use your smartphone to mostly surf the web, play games, and communicate with others, but there's so much more it can do. Thanks to integrated features and third-party apps, you can seamlessly control things around your home, including your TV, tablet, Bluetooth sp ...more
Having quick and immediate access to your notifications is one of the most important features for any modern day phone, but these alerts can be easily missed when your device isn't in the palm of your hand. When you're working (or playing) on your computer, it's fairly easy t ...more
There are some calls you really don't want to miss. Whether it's "I'm going into labor" or "We have some questions about your résumé," not being able to answer or respond to certain messages can cause some serious problems. No matter what the case may be, missing a call or fo ...more
Since the Razer Phone's announcement in 2017, we've seen a new subgroup of phones emerge. Gaming phones are now a thing, leading to companies like ASUS creating phones that are thoroughly optimized for the mobile gaming experience. And with their second iteration, they perfect ...more
Unless you have unlimited cellular data, you probably connect your iPhone to every Wi-Fi network you come across. It could be a local coffee shop, public library, or just a friend's place. Wherever it is, you'll need to ask for the access point's password if it's a secured net ...more
Gmail recently added a feature to dynamically change how much information from emails is shown on the main screen. The more info you choose to display, the fewer emails will fit on the screen. But if you're not a fan of these email previews, you can disable them and fit more m ...more
Most messaging apps have it, so it's about time WhatsApp did too. The WhatsApp beta now has a search bar for emojis. Maybe it's just me being lazy, but swiping through pages and pages of emojis is such a chore. I think we've all experienced a time where we're convinced that a ...more
All across the web, you'll find guides on setting up various apps and mods for your Android device—but while these are certainly useful, they all seem to be working under the assumption that the reader has a certain level of knowledge about Android. For someone that's just get ...more