The Google Glass

The Google Glass: Google Glass is developed by none other than Google in the Project Glass research and development project, with the mission of producing a...

Is Personal Privacy a casualty of the Modern Age?

Is Personal Privacy a casualty of the Modern Age?: “Gone are the days where people used Internet actually as Internet.” “Being a scientist, I am researching on a topic through which ...

What steps do you or should take to Backup your Co...

What steps do you or should take to Backup your Co...: “Being a well-known architect, creating design is my passion and my work. In this competitive world, it’s not easy to sustain in the mark...

Social Engineering

Social Engineering: An attack vector most intricate to handle! Preface This document covers information aspects on how does Social Engineering work and ...

The Sony Vaio Pro 13 -An Incredible Ultrabook

The Sony Vaio Pro 13 -An Incredible Ultrabook: Pros ·          Extremely thin and light ·          Brilliant screen ·          Full-measured SD card opening and HDMI ·     ...

The Sony Vaio Pro 13 -An Incredible Ultrabook

Pros

·         Extremely thin and light

·         Brilliant screen

·         Full-measured SD card opening and HDMI

·         Extremely quick space execution

Cons

·         A little boisterous

·         Touchpad isn't extraordinary

·         Doesn't have Intel HD 5000 design

Primary concern

The Sony Vaio Pro is an extraordinary Ultrabook to recognize in the event that you need something extremely light, simple to convey, yet delightful to utilize and with exceptional execution for regular assignments. It even has a touch screen.

So, when one discusses about ultra-movable laptops one basically does not look past the Apple MacBook Air. It's the benchmark and since its beginning no Windows OEM even verged on conveying an item that matches its huge quality regarding planning and ease of use. That was until Sony's Vaio Pro tagged along, which as per the organization is the lightest 13-inch Ultrabook on the planet and figures out how to overshadow even the MacBook Air. The inquiry numerous need us to answer is that whether it is superior to the MacBook Air. While the response to that doubt is not as obvious as one may trust, the last effect is very fascinating.

Flawlessly as far as streamlined outline the Vaio Pro 13 is totally stunning and challenge we say it’s an improved looker than the MacBook Air which has displayed the same plan for five years and now feels a little tedious.

Where the Vaio Pro 13 truly staggers is in its manufacture quality and weight. It crushes the 13-inch MacBook Air as far as weight as it only weighs in at 1.06kg while the MacBook Air is an exceptional arrangement heavier at 1.35kg. Sony administered this Herculean accomplishment by utilizing Carbon fibre as a substitute for Aluminum, which is a much lighter material.

What's more for your tapping delight, Sony Vaio pro 13 accompanies NFC (Near Field Communication innovation). This takes into consideration the brisk trade of site Urls and empowers Bluetooth associations through tapping a good NFC gadget to the Vaio PCs.

One may conclude that to accomplish such weightlessness, Sony may have skimmed on raise quality, yet the answer is a simple No. Preceding the Vaio Pro, we can see the Acer Aspire S3, which has dependably gunned for size zero, yet has dependably complimented to cheat, due to its repulsive plastic assemble. The Vaio Pro, then again, displays a carbon fibre case which is intensified as nails.

It's a rock robust item which carries a new outline sensibility to the table in a business that is flooded with MacBook Air clones.

Sony actualizes a great looking metallic stress on the pivot that looks wonderful, yet in practice has sharp edges that have a tendency to jab into one lap, which could be a touch cumbersome .

Design and Features

The Pro 13 Touch is marginally greater than its 11.6-inch linemate. Both are momentously thin, minor, and lightweight and, basically, what you likely pictured something called an "ultrabook" should look like. The carbon strand development may not feel as strong as an aluminium undercarriage, however it still appears as though it can stand up to the rigours of an everyday drive.

Open up the cover and then again on the portable computer lifts up, giving a more comfortable typing angle. The illuminated keys are liberally estimated and separated, so even messy typists have no issues sorting sensibly quickly. The deck is shallow, however, so there isn't a mess of key voyage --there's only no place for the keys to go. There is a little measure of flex when sorting (it was more discernible on the Pro 11), yet unless you're truly pressing on the keys you presumably won't perceive.

The clickpad is decent: responsive without being unsteady, and with great multitouch support. It's reasonably extensive, too, so two-and three-finger signals are simple. Moreover, you can dependably utilize the screen to get around.

The gleaming 10-focus touch LCD utilization Sony's Triluminos Display for Mobile innovation, which is comparable to what you'll find in Sony's high-end LCD Tvs. Sony additionally, says the workstation has X-Reality for Mobile innovation that enhances film quality. Notwithstanding innovations, the screen is truly superb for viewing films and photographs.

Its local determination is 1, 920x1, 080 pixels and it does use IPS innovation, giving it wide survey edges on the sides, top, and base. Content is delightful and sharp, and the 13.3-inch size is clearly more agreeable to finish up than the Pro 11's 11.6-inch LCD. Touch does prove to be useful on a screen this size, however, permitting you to effortlessly drag windows and records around on the desktop.

On the left, one just gets the power cable port and the air vent which is there to administer high temperature. The right side is home to the twin USB 3.0 agreeable ports, an HDMI port, an SD card viewer and a 3.5 sound jack. Generally speaking, we feel that Sony has conveyed a shining Ultrabook as far as an outline, weight and looks.

Performance and Battery life

The Pro 13 Touch runs on a fourth-gen 1.5GHz Intel Core i7-4550u processor, 8gb of DDR3 1,600MHz memory, incorporated Intel HD 5000 graphics, and a 512gb PCIe robust state drive, and stacked with Windows 8 Pro. It's a mix that isn't even accessible from Sony. Be that as it may, Sony offers a Us$2, 300 designs that approaches: 1.8GHz Intel Core i7-4500U processor, 8gb of memory, incorporated Intel HD 4400 graphics, and a 512gb PCIe robust state drive.

The new Intel processors haven't truly finished any performance boosts. It's not set to clear you out, however for everyday jobs its bounty. Additionally, waking the portable computer from the rest takes less than 3 seconds, which is unbelievable for when you need or need to simply begin working immediately. Additionally, with the Pro 13, from off to the Windows 8 Start monitor takes fewer than 10 seconds. Note, however, that the multitasking test and iTunes test utilization native Apple software.

The battery life came in at a normal of 8 hours and 53 minutes. That doesn't exactly beat the 14 hours and 25 minutes the MacBook Air administered in the same test. On the other hand, Sony does offer a US$150 sheet battery that joins to the lowest of the laptop that could conceivably twofold the life.

Conclusion

For any individual who's needed to haul around a laptop for travel or a day by day drive for any measure of time, it’s hard not to be excited  concerning this new era of laptops. Super thin and light with super long battery life, the Sony  Pro 13 Touch and also the 2013 Macbook Air are prime cases of what's conceivable with Intel's fourth-gen Core i-arrangement processors. The Pro 13 Touch offers an extraordinary Windows 8 experience, more than enough execution muscle for everyday use, and long battery life. No, not exactly long as the Air's, yet of course, once the Air is dead, it’s dead. Sony at any rate gives you an alternative to go beyond its inner battery's life.

The Google Glass

Google Glass is developed by none other than Google in the Project Glass research and development project, with the mission of producing a mass-market ever-present computer. Google Glass displays information in a Smartphone-like hands-free format that can interrelate with the Internet via usual language voice instructions.

People are nowadays whispering about Google Glass (styled as "GLΛSS") about its mysterious features and how does it actually work and how you can control it.

Let’s explore it.

To start with, we should discuss the contraption that has been drawing all that into consideration. The glasses, as you can clearly see, are not similar to your average spectacles of course. Inside the right arm are the parts of a cell phone--a processor, 16gb of space, a Bluetooth radio, a little electric cell and that's only the tip of the iceberg.

On the front, you have that superstar --a minor small glass square. That is the screen, and when you put the glasses on you can change them with the intention that it sits marginally above the highest point of your right eye. Provided that worn right it truly doesn't dark your line of vision. You can additionally alter or swivel that screen when you have it on to accumulate it closer or out of your eye.

The glasses combine with your telephone to get connectivity. There is iphone underpin now for a few capacities, however Android backing is much deeper. Utilizing the Android Myglass application you can design the association and even utilize a Screencast characteristic, which reflects the Glass presentation on the telephone. You combine them with your telephone by means of Bluetooth and provided that you have a Bluetooth tying you can utilize your telephone's 3g or 4g connection. In the event that you don't, you can interface both the Glass and the telephone to Wifi. Without connectivity, you can even now take photographs and movie, however.

To the right of that glass box is a 5-megapixel Polaroid. There's a catch on the highest point of the glasses for taking photographs, however the least demanding approach to control that Polaroid is with your voice.

You can go the display either through voice commands or by utilizing the trackpad on the right arm of the glass. That whole arm is touch-touchy: sliding your finger on it permits you to travel through the Glass interface and tapping once on it gives you a chance to make choices.

You likewise have two decisions of how you can wake up the glasses: Tap on that arm, or tilt your head back. Tipping your head back looks inconceivably ungainly yet it's one of the most straightforward approaches to stand out just enough to be noticed.

Correspondingly, it looks exceptionally odd when you converse with the glasses or yourself, yet it is one of the most straightforward approaches to get a percentage of the essential capacities. All you need to do is say with an elevated volume, "O.k., Glass, take a picture" and the glasses will take a picture. "O.k., Glass, record a video and your  glass will start recording automatically.”O.k. glass get a direction to” and you’ll get exact direction. “O. k glass send a message” and the message is sent.

So this is how Google brings  innovations which is indeed beyond a human imagination.

Social Engineering

An attack vector most intricate to handle!

Preface

This document covers information aspects on how does Social Engineering work and its countermeasures to prevent from Hacker Techniques and exploits.

Introduction

What is 'Social Engineering'? Social Engineering is probably most succinctly described by Harl in 'People Hacking':

“ The art and science of getting people to comply with your wishes."

 “Social engineering is the practice of obtaining confidential information by manipulation of legitimate users. A social engineer will commonly use the telephone or Internet to trick a person into revealing sensitive information or getting them to do something that is against typical policies. By this method, social engineers exploit the natural tendency of a person to trust his or her word, rather than exploiting computer security holes. It is generally agreed upon that “users are weakest link” in security and this principle is what makes social engineering possible.”

“In 1994, a French hacker named Anthony Zboralski called the FBI office in Washington, pretending to be an FBI representative working at the U.S. embassy in Paris. He persuaded the person at the other end of the phone to explain how to connect to the FBI's phone conferencing system. Then he ran up a $250,000 phone bill in seven months.”

Bruce Schneier “Secret and Lies”

How does the Social Engineering attack cycle work?

1.      Information gathering:

There could be variety of techniques which is used by the aggressor to gather sensitive information about the target(s). Once this information is gathered, it can be used to build a relationship either with the target or someone who is important to the success of the attack.

Information that might be gathered includes, but is not limited to only:

·         A birth date

·         A phone list

·         An organization’s organizational chart

2.Developing Relationship

An aggressor will first try to build up a good bonding with the target. He makes sure that he gains the trust of the target which he’ll later exploit.

3.Exploitation 

The target could then be manipulated by the ‘trusted’ attacker to reveal their sensitive information like password to carry out an action (eg. Re-enter your username pass for reversing Facebook policies) this normally occurs. This action could be the end or the beginning of the next phase.

4.Execution

Once the target has finished the task requested by the attacker, the cycle is complete.

General Attack vector Facts and figures

There are two types of Social Engineering attacks

Technical attacks
Non-technical attacks.

“Technical attacks are those attacks that deceive the user into believing that the application in use is truly providing them with security which is not the fact always.”

The most Technical attacks

Phishing

Phishing is a new term of the century which is used to take over a private information from a user. Your natural response to this statement is, of course, "yea but I am not so simply fooled." And of course you aren't.This is why phishers use a technique called "social engineering".

This is generally used for cybercrimes but sometimes it is also done through the telephone/mobile phone. The information which is obtained is then used to commit crimes-such as logging into your Facebook account and posting vulgar or illicit data on your wall or taking over full control of your bank account and then transfer money. In phishing, the aggressor never come face to face. The appearance and logos are almost same like the original one or sometimes same as the original which requests a user to “verify” the information and if not followed, it will lead to serious consequences. These kind of emails appear to have come from a legitimate business organization.

Spam e-mails

This is a mass e-mail system. Hundreds and thousands of e-mails are sent to the victim. This is tightly related with phishing attempt.

The Non- Technical attacks

“Non-technical attacks are those attacks that are purely perpetrated through the art of deception.”-peer to peer

Support staff

The attacker acts as a clean support crew to help users to fix any problem. During this process they ask for their credentials and after this procedure their account is compromised by the aggressor.

Hoaxing

It is a trick to make the user believe that something false is real. Unlike a fraud or con, a hoax is perpetrated as a practical funny story, to cause humiliation or to provoke social change by making aware of something.

Authoritative Voice

The attacker can call up to the organization’s computer help desk and pretend to have trouble accessing the system. He/she claims to be in a hurry and needs his password reset right away and also demands to know the password over the phone. If the aggressor adds little credibility to his story with information that has been picked up from other social engineering methods, the crew is more likely to believe in the attacker’s fake story and do as requested.

Countermeasures to prevent Social Engineering

The question might arise in your mind. How can you fully protect against Social Engineering attack? Is there a way? The answer is almost ‘No’. For the simple reason that no matter whatever controls are implemented, there will always be the possibility of the human exploitation being influenced by a social, political or sophisticated behavior.

Nevertheless, as with any risk, there are ways in which we can diminish the risks by following some useful tricks. But one can never guarantee that he/she will never be a victim/target of Social Engineering attack.

However, you can follow the following ways to protect against Social Engineering. Do never reveal information like:

Ø  Usernames

Ø  Passwords

Ø  ID numbers

Ø  PIN numbers

Ø  Server names

Ø  System information

Ø  Credit card numbers

Ø  Schedules

Summary

The skilled application of Social Engineering can be a danger to the protection of any organization. As a security professional, it is vital to understand the significance of this hazard and the way in which it can be manifested. Only then can appropriate countermeasures be employed and sustain in order to guard an organization on a regular basis.

What steps do you or should take to Backup your Computer and Personal Data?

“Being a well-known architect, creating design is my passion and my work. In this competitive world, it’s not easy to sustain in the market if you don’t have your unique stuff. I always save my designs and work on the regular basis so that I don’t lose them at any point. Once I was little tired and told my honey to give me a glass of coffee on my desk. Accidently when she handed over the coffee mug to me, it's fallen down on my machine and my machine stopped working immediately and my things were smashed. Bang!! My frustration was disallowing me to believe that I have lost a treasure like data just in a moment. Oh, I could have taken a Backup of my data!”

In this increasingly digital world, various types of data files i.e. financial records, family pics, multi-media, personal and business contacts chock full of irreplaceable data. Dangerous yet undeniable hard-drive can fail at any point of time. And if it isn't equipment failure that does it in, fire, floods, theft and even user error all pose serious, viable threats to your data as well. Subsequently, backing up your computer is crucial.

Decide what you need to Backup

From your computer hard drive, decide what you want to Backup. By eliminating unnecessary data from backup efforts, you can save storage space. Answer yourself what you can afford to lose.

Understand your data environment

Once you are sure, what want to Backup, you’ll need to determine where it is located; which type of data it is and how long it needs to be backed up.

Craft the processes and procedures you'll need to ensure backups are completed properly

This includes the responsibility to ensure that data backup is completed properly and data is not corrupted or damaged while backing up.

Ensure that backup copies are valid and can be successfully restored

This requires that you rank the importance of your data and establish better ways that the most important data is backed up first and restored first. Be sure that you have enough time to back up all your data which is vital to your business. Check regularly your backup and ensure that it’s not corrupted or damaged and can be restored whenever required.

Regularly revisit your backup/restore risks, procedures, and technologies

This is to make sure they are adequate as business needs and conditions evolve.

Dispose of backup media carefully

Make sure that data which you have deleted are destroyed completely so that their contents cannot be read by any illicit.

Finally! The best home backup plan options - A complete backup strategy

Shadow Copy

This will provide you time to time snapshot of your files that can be reverted back to you  which have  been accidentally removed or deleted. On Windows, this means turning on the Volume Shadow Copy Service. On Mac OS X it involves setting up Time Machine.This automatically creates the backup of your files. If any kind of accident or deletion takes place, this helps to restore the files and documents.

External Drive

This method serves as a heart of your technology of your backup strategy. It’s quick, storage is plenteous (in most of the cases), and it’s relatively inexpensive. CDs and DVDs are the simplest and cheapest way for a user to backup (however CDs/DVDs are almost obsolete technology for backup media). Flash drives also known as USB (Universal Serial Bus) is an option for backing up data. This is a tiny device and can be easily carried in a pocket. It can hold a large sized data depending on the storage capacity of the drive. It is pricier than optical media; running anywhere from $20 to $120 (depends upon the storage volume of the device).

Cloud Backup

A growing number of consumers and small businesses are opting to back up their data online – and for good reason. First-rate online backup services, including ZipCloud, SugarSync and SafeSync, offer distinct advantages over conventional on-site backup methods such as backing up to external hard drives. For instance, most have convenient schedules, allowing you to schedule backups to automatically occur at a set time or whenever changes are made to already backed up files. Remote backup services also tend to be more secure, employing cutting-edge asecurity measures and technologies, like military-grade encryption, to safeguard your data. Lastly, keeping backups off-site "in the cloud" ensures you have accessible copies of your data should something locally wipe out or damage your computer (think a fire or natural disaster). 

Recommendation

You may go through an online resource to decide which could be the best cloud based backup can fit your budget and organization. i.e. Top ten backup service comparison and reviews.

Is Personal Privacy a casualty of the Modern Age?

“Gone are the days where people used Internet actually as Internet.”

“Being a scientist, I am researching on a topic through which I want to earn some good revenue and royalty from my pattern. I used to save my daily progress and documentation on my local drive of the machine; So, I was in the impression that I am safe and my research is private to me “only”. And now I got to know that my local drive is actually not local and being spied by Government agencies just to confirm that my research is not involved with any malicious or unhealthy community like Terrorism. Huh, now my project was not private to me only, knowingly or unknowingly it has been disclosed. Where has my privacy gone? Huh, sounds scary, doesn’t it?”

Well, it was a layman example to realize that how much concerned we are about our privacy and confidentiality. Even we are so much concerned about the privacy of garbage, then why not with the privacy of virtual life in the modern age?

Internet is designed to share, collaborate and communicate together. Internet made things pretty simple; socialization became so effective and quick. People actually started leveraging such services offered by giant social media players such as Facebook, Google, Microsoft and nevertheless Twitter. We put most of our private data using different or same social media on cloud including our Emails, contacts, Photographs, Business plans, Marketing strategies and other private or public stuff.

On top of this, we try our best to protect our data being hosted on “trusted platform” like Facebook, Google etc by enabling Mobile notification to monitor any unexpected activity, control users, hide your profile from being search, disallow anyone to write on your wall etc. In fact We try to follow industries best practices to control our data by accessing sites only over secure protocols such HTTPs using strong cipher suite etc. The bottom line is to keep our data private and only private!

What is Privacy actually?

Privacy is a basic human right. A requirement of maintaining the human condition with dignity and respect. Theory says that “The state or condition of being alone, undisturbed, or free from public attention, as a matter of choice or right; freedom from interference or intrusion”.

We always consider ourselves safe yet our privacy is often breached. US had begun a project in early 2007 named PRISM, executed and managed by the NSA (National Security Agency). PRISM is a security surveillance program. PRISM collects mass data and isolates them from nine participating internet companies. These companies had to join PRISM under government law enforcement. These companies have joined this program within the last 6 years include: Microsoft (2010), Yahoo (2008), Google (2009), Facebook (2009), PalTalk (2009), YouTube (2010), Skype (2011), AOL (2011), and Apple (2012). The massive data collection as recorded on April 5th 2013, showed about 117,675 active investigation targets were recovered from the participating companies.

The process of PRISM interface begins as an NSA supervisor gives the go signal for the called “selectors”. Selectors are based on the criteria that each target is at least 51% under “reasonable belief” to be likely a foreigner who is not within the US territory at the time of data gathering. We can clearly see that our virtual life is in a cage and under control by PRISM. Communication medium including Live chats, Personal Messages (which are no longer personal now), pictures, VoIP calls and Financial Transaction.

Reduced privacy is the fact of modern life.

Doesn't it sound as “Hey, you got the news? The age of privacy is over.”?

By considering the facts, I believe that we all should follow the privacy as a casualty. However, your personal ethics must guide your decisions concerning Technology.

Whoaa!! Started my career with oDesk!

Hi Anywho!

whass up?

I am tiny, excited and enthusiastic computer science student. Love following kick ass content published over internet especially for gadgets and various technologies. And I fell in love with actual great content. At the same I stopped the tick-tack of the clock and register immediately to disk, just a couple of weeks back actually.

Let's have a flashback....

Basically I'am an Indian fellow, located on the western part of the country. I have started my schooling in a convent school and about to complete my graduation, of course as native language in English. During my graduation, I've got several opportunities to speak about various technologies i.e. Linux, C language, and Android OS. During these days I found myself as metal-head and techno-lust with ability to think about out of the box for the subjects I am interested in. So by this way I found "wanna be a geek" feeling inside.

I love colors, adventures, tourism, music and nature. That actually inspires me to shed creativity in my content.

The flashback ends here...

You may stay tuned if you found this interesting, soon I'm gonna blast with my new blog post. This time with a specific subject in a lucid manner.

See ya!!