Sender

Here's a routine that I'm sure all of us smartphone users go through at least several times a day. You notice your Samsung Galaxy S4's notification LED blinking, grab your phone to see what it is, and enter your PIN. Only instead of anything important, you find that it's just ...more

If you remember last time, we successfully uploaded picture with a small hidden PHP command executer embedded in it onto a server. Now, our goal is to take this a step further and get an interactive shell. To do this, we need to upload another file that either binds a port for ...more

Welcome to part three in a series about steganography, the art of hiding things in plain sight. We are practicing steganography because it can be a useful skill if you don't have access to encryption software, or need a quick solution to make sure the sender and recipient are ...more

Your beloved Samsung Galaxy S3 is nearing the end of its life cycle. Sure, it can do most of what newer devices can, especially if you were lucky enough to receive the KitKat update, but your diminishing battery and scratched up screen have seen better days. When you upgrade ...more

Thanks to its intuitive interface that makes sending and receiving money a breeze, Venmo has become the go-to app for millions in the US. In fact, you've probably heard the term "Venmo you" being tossed around between friends. But before you take the plunge and sign up, it's a ...more

When Android 4.4 was released, the massive changelog led to some awesome new features getting lost in the virtually endless list of new tweaks. One such change was the ability to set a default text messaging app, which streamlined the existing process of installing a third-par ...more

Apple has a secret iMessage effect so hidden that there's only one way to unlock it, and it's not by digging through the Messages app's settings, tools, effects, or interface. However, it's used the same way whether you're messaging from an iPhone, iPad, or Mac, so it's easy t ...more

Welcome back, my greenhorn hackers! In the first part of this series, I introduced you to the basics of networking including IP addresses, ports, NAT, and DHCP. In this lesson, I want to introduce you to the basics of TCP/IP, i.e., Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) and Inte ...more

Introduction 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. What are QR Codes? No doubt you have seen these all over the place in recent years. Origina ...more

There are many impressive features in the new iOS 11 for iPhones, and the Maps app got a lot of love from Apple. This means it's finally about time you stop relying on Google Maps for all of your navigation needs, since Apple Maps is not only more accurate than it used to be, ...more

When Snapchat first hit it big, people just assumed it'd be used for seedy activities. And while that's not completely true, it's definitely true sometimes. For those moments when you need to take a sneaky screenshot that doesn't notify the sender, Android has plenty of ways t ...more

A lot of people still trust their web browsers to remember every online account password for them. If you're one of those users, you need to adopt a more secure way of managing passwords, because browser-stored passwords are hacker gold mines. With a USB Rubber Ducky and physi ...more

Smartphones are still "phones," which means communicating with others is usually a primary use. Ranging from a simple "hi" to a more personal conversation and even sharing passwords, our messages should remain private so that only the intended recipient sees their content. Whi ...more

Apple has seemingly always made it a priority to show how much it cares about user security and privacy — enough that it has a page dedicated to it, proclaiming that "privacy is a fundamental human right." It's true that there are few issues more important than user privacy wh ...more

Group chats in WhatsApp are great for communicating with multiple people at once, but that can be a blessing and a curse — any message you send will be seen by everyone, and that's not always ideal. Thankfully, there's a new feature that lets you respond to group messages priv ...more

When WhatsApp first came out in 2010, it quickly gained notoriety as a great way to meet new people all over the world thanks to group chats, which allow multiple admins for each group that can all add participants from their own contacts lists. As a repair tech, I would buy ...more

According to a new study, the majority of smartphone users check their devices 150 times a day. While that number may seem incredibly high at first glance, the influx of notifications and amount of social media apps available reduce the initial shock and make the number seem n ...more

With the release of iOS 11, Apple promised to give us person-to-person transactions by way of iMessages. In the iOS 11.2 update, the new Apple Pay Cash system is now ready for you to send money to family and friends right from your iPhone — and there are multiple ways to get i ...more

I love cryptography. It is like a great gigantic puzzle for me to solve. However, it is more important than that. It is also how we keep secrets safe. Not just sorta safe either, but really safe. Until recently, if you wanted to use strong encryption you had to either learn d ...more

Snapchat is like that very attractive girl at the bar that has one too many shots and ends up slobbering on the bouncer as she gets led out. Of course she can still recover since she is hot, but you only get so many chances before you just become a complete failure. And that's ...more

Want the convenience of a throwaway email address without all the hassle? How about anonymous text messaging so you can get to know someone before giving them your real information? Gliph has you covered. Gliph is a service that lets you create an identity around a set of thre ...more

There's a fine line between order and chaos in group chats. With all the cross-talk, threads can easily devolve into a random mess that has nothing to do with the original discussion topic. WhatsApp group chats certainly aren't immune to this problem, but they've recently take ...more

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

Smartphones are more like computers than actual telephones. Unfortunately, thieves, hackers, and other bad actors know this and are always looking to make money off your personal data. Thankfully, your Galaxy S20, S20+, or S20 Ultra has tools to combat these threats — as long ...more

You've probably heard of RCS messaging. The new standard has been promoted by Google as their answer to iMessage and is the backbone behind the new "Chat" features in Android Messages. With RCS, Android phones will now enjoy enhanced messaging like iPhone users have had for ye ...more

Apple dropped the sixth public beta for iOS 13 today, Aug. 15. This public update comes just hours after the release of developer beta 7, an interesting move for Apple. The company has recently stuck to a schedule of seeding the public beta at least one day after the developer ...more

In this article, I'll show you how to make a simple Gmail notifier. Python can do various things in terms of notifications; sending commands to an Arduino unit, playing sounds, opening windows, etc. The code below simply plays some music, but the possibilities of notification ...more

You've finally got an invite into Google+. Now what? At first glance, things can be a bit overwhelming. We've got some great tips to help you get started. 1. Fill your Circles The circles feature is the core of how Google+ lets you manage your online relationships with your ...more

Google's new Inbox by Gmail service wants to fundamentally change the way you handle email, so a bit of a learning curve is to be expected when you're first using the utility. As of right now, the service is invite-only, but if you were lucky enough to get in on the ground flo ...more

Welcome to part two in a series about steganography, the art of hiding things in plain sight. We are practicing steganography because it can be a useful skill if you don't have access to encryption software, or need a quick solution to make sure the sender and recipient are th ...more

We've all been guilty of sending messages that we instantly regret — be it a moment of anger or plain old drunk texting. More often than not, these silly texts result in unnecessary headaches for both you and your contact. Thankfully, WhatsApp has finally tackled this age-old ...more

If you use Apple's email services and the "From:" field in your iPhone's Mail app is cluttered with @Mac.com, @Me.com, and @iCloud.com variations of the same address — along with third-party accounts — there's an easy way to declutter things and hide the addresses you don't us ...more

In these times of social distancing, video calling is becoming the technological substitute for face-to-face connections. For those who carry an iPhone, the art of video calling defaults to FaceTime, the native app on iOS that is exclusive to Apple devices. But what do you do ...more

All kinds of people pretend to be someone they're not on the internet, including scammers, people attempting to wind others up, hackers and web predators. Almost all of these people will leave bases uncovered and they're all easy to expose when you understand how to. Here are ...more

Midway through 2013, a popular custom ROM called Paranoid Android introduced their multitasking feature "Halo." Bubble-style notifications inspired by Facebook chat heads pop up near the top of the screen, and you simply tap on them to bring up the app in a floating window. I ...more

If you use Apple's Mail app on your iPhone for iCloud and third-party email accounts, install the new iOS update ASAP if you haven't already. While there's not a colossal number of new features, the latest tools and improvements are powerful enough to make the update feel like ...more

If Netflix's $9.99/month has deterred you from signing up for its streaming service, you're probably looking for cheaper alternatives to stream movies and TV shows, like Crackle (free with ads) or Hulu ($7.99/month with some ads). And now there's a new option for you when it c ...more

Due to the overnight success of smartphones, millions of people are connecting with others. Currently, over 15 million text messages are sent every minute worldwide. Most of this communication is happening in the open where any hacker can intercept and share in the discussion ...more

It has not been a good year for Apple, as far as software scandals are concerned. From autocorrect nuisances to secret slowdowns of aging iPhones, Apple has had a lot to answer for. iOS users now have another issue to worry about — it's being called "chaiOS," and it's wrecking ...more

How do spammers get your email? You give it to them. Not directly, no — you sign up for an app or service and happily hand over your email to verify your new account, then that app or service sells your email address to marketers who now know what kinds of apps and services yo ...more

Web browser extensions are one of the simplest ways to get starting using open-source intelligence tools because they're cross-platform. So anyone using Chrome on Linux, macOS, and Windows can use them all the same. The same goes for Firefox. One desktop browser add-on, in par ...more

Facebook just released its new "home on Android" last Friday, appropriately called Facebook Home. Taking a cue from Amazon's Kindle, Home serves as an "operating system" that runs over Android. While the HTC First will be the first smartphone to ship with Home out of the box, ...more

Instead of responding to a WhatsApp message with short texts like "LOL" or thinking too hard about something meaningful to say, use an emoji reaction. They cut down on clutter in group chats and take up less space than typing emoji individually in a conversation. WhatsApp init ...more

WhatsApp is the go-to messaging app for millions worldwide and its easy to see why. The app can be considered the Swiss Army Knife of texting thanks to numerous features like Group Chats and Status Stories, in addition to striking a great balance between ease of access and ove ...more

The allure of Snapchat is that all pictures and videos sent through the app vanish a few seconds after being sent. They're completely obliterated not only from the phone, but from the Snapchat server, as well. The popularity of the application has even incited Facebook to rele ...more

Welcome to Minecraft World! Check out our advanced tutorials and come play on our free server. For last week's Workshop, we decided to attempt to communicate long distance without the use of the chat bar. To accomplish this, we built an elementary redstone pulser that would a ...more

Google's text-to-speech engine is getting pretty good these days. In a recent update, the computerized voice that reads on screen text (like Google Now search results) got an audio quality bump that brought its clarity up to its highest level yet. And with each update, that ro ...more

Whether you miss the good old days of Telnet or you want to know what hacking was like when security was nothing but an afterthought, Telehack is the game for you. The text-based hacking game is a simulation of a stylized combination of ARPANET and Usenet, circa 1985 to 1990, ...more

Gmail has been the email standard for quite some time now, and for good reason: it's a free service provided by one of the largest tech companies in the world that offers users an amazing feature set to manage, send, and keep track of all their important emails. However, all ...more

As was mentioned by the great OTW last week, TOR, aka The Onion Router, has had its integrity attacked by the NSA. In an attempt to reduce the anonymity granted by the service, the NSA has opened a great many nodes of their own. The purpose is presumably to trace the origin of ...more

As the iOS 18 beta continues, Apple's still investing time into fixing up iOS 17. Compared to iOS 17.4 and iOS 17.5, which both had over 30 new features and changes, iOS 17.6 is a relatively small software update for iPhone. But there are still some important things to know ab ...more

After numerous scandals like the Equifax data breach and the 2016 US election, cybersecurity has become a significant issue for Americans. Unfortunately, anytime we use our devices, we're open to a cyber attack — especially when we browse the web. However, there are ways that ...more

Looks like Minecraft is getting some cool new features, including editable books and colorful wooden half slabs. Check out the video below to see the newest Minecraft Snapshot 12w17a in action. Warning: This release is for experienced users only! It may corrupt your world or m ...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

After several weeks of testing out the public beta, Apple has finally released iOS 8.3 to the general public. The latest iteration of iOS for iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch serves mostly as an update to fix many of the bugs that plagued earlier versions, but there are still a co ...more

Your iPhone's Messages app has some impressive new features and changes with iOS 17, and you've probably already noticed some of them just by using the updated app. But there are less apparent features, even hidden ones, that have likely eluded you that you're going to want to ...more

After nearly two months of beta testing, Apple is finally pushing the iOS 15.6 software update to all iPhone users. While it's not as feature-rich as the iOS 15.5 or iOS 15.4 that came before it, there are still a few things you'll want to know about it. The iOS 15.6 update w ...more

While a lot of internet threats are rather over-hyped, there are some serious things to be cautious of when going online. Probably the biggest risk to the average internet user is malicious software. Commonly knows as "malware," this term refers to any program that exists sole ...more

Getting cool new features before everyone else is just plain fun. To be on the bleeding edge can require a lot of effort at times, since the fastest way to get an update is to find it as soon as it leaks, then get to work on sideloading the new version. Luckily, there's an eas ...more

Now that we have our payload hosted on our VPS, as well as Metasploit installed, we can begin developing the webpage which will trick our "John Smith" target into opening our malicious file. Once he has, we can take over his computer. This part is more involved, but the first ...more