It's still unimaginable to hack into someone's Car's on-board Computer system but it's not impossible. A team of modern day student hackers from the University of Washington and the University of San Diego conducted the experiment and successfully exploited the Car's system using specialized wireless hacking tool called CarShark. The results were terrifying:

• they turned off brakes in a moving car
• blasted the radio volume
• turned the heat up high
• locked the passenger door from inside
• showed the fake reading on the speedometer

Do you flaunt your latest car's built in GPS navigation system with gizmo friendly abilities and ultra-rich features? It's time to think. Time to think how you could protect yourself and your car. The future of car jacking is at metamorphic stage simply termed car hacking for now. Sooner or later, it seems imminent.
src

The cyber worm, called Stuxnet, has been the object of intense study since its detection in June. As more has become known about it, alarm about its capabilities and purpose have grown. Some top cyber security
experts now say Stuxnet's arrival heralds something blindingly new: a cyber weapon created to cross from the digital realm to the physical world – to destroy something. -src


According to Symantec, which has been investigating the virus and plans to publish details of the rogue commands on Wednesday, Iran has had far more infections than any other country.
"It is not speculation that this is the first directed cyber weapon", or one aimed at a specific real-world process, said Joe Weiss, a US expert who has testified to Congress on technological security threats to the electric grid and other physical operations. "The only speculation is what it is being used against, and by whom."
Experts say Stuxnet's knowledge of Microsoft's Windows operating system, the Siemens program and the associated hardware of the target industry make it the work of a well-financed, highly organised team. -src

In particular, Stuxnet hooks the programming software, which means that when someone uses the software to view code blocks on the PLC, the injected blocks are nowhere to be found. This is done by hooking enumeration, read, and write functions so that you can’t accidentally overwrite the hidden blocks as well. -src

The head of the Pentagon's cyber war department, Vice Adm. Bernard McCullough said Thursday, Sept. 22, that Stuxnet had capabilities never seen before. In a briefing to the Armed Forces Committee of US Congress, he testified that it was regarded as the most advanced and sophisticated piece of Malware to date. -src: Yahoo News

Mahmoud Alyaee, secretary-general of Iran's industrial computer servers, including its nuclear facilities control systems, confirmed Saturday, Sept. 25, that 30,000 computers belonging to classified industrial units had been infected and disabled by the malicious Stuxnet virus. -src

I've come across many laptops and computers to fix. HP's are the worst. Good for us, we technician, we get job to open up and fix it up. But from consumer's point of view, most of the HP laptops before 2009 are havoc. The most notable problems with those laptops are over-heating issues, noisy and faulty fans, flaw design on how the chips are seated on the board, power adapter problems etc.

I've seen HP laptops with power problems. They don't supply power at all to the laptop. The power jack on the laptop is fragile and faulty. Even the small bend during those carry here and there moments, it's prone to disaster. The only solution to these kind of problems is to resolder/rewire the connection on the power jack of the motherboard's from where it gets the power. 

Other types of problems are boot up problems. This is not where you see all those regular POST screen and then it stops. Nope, not at all, it's the hardware level of malfunction. You plug the power cord, turn on the machine and you see all the lights lit up on the keyboard but there is no sign of life on the LCD screen. It's totally black. As a measure of troubleshooting without opening the motherboard, the basic steps could be:
1. Unplug battery, power cord and press/hold power key for 30 sec. And, plug everything back on and try it back on. This is usually useful for battery drain problems and sometimes could act as problems for display too.

2. Try the external monitor to make sure it's not the LCD problems. If external monitor displays things, it's LCD issues but if not, it's motherboard to blame.

3. Suffocate the laptop, block all the air coming in/out through. I mean completely block the fan, ventilation of the laptop and leave it on for at least half and hour. Then, turn it off and turn it on instantly. You could use pillow or tape to cover all those ventilation on the laptop. The reason for this is to melt down any residue that's blocking the conductivity of any chips. This is a temporary fix.

This problem is prominent on HP pavilion series of Laptops. Mostly the video chip Nvidia is badly located on the board. It has BGA structure and it keeps melting over the persistent use of 1 year or so. One day, it doesn't conduct the electrons because of that and what you get is the blank screen. The only solution for this problem is to resolder the balls , seat it back. A copper layer in between could resolve the problem in future once and for all. But this involves very careful and delicate work. It needs experienced hands. One slight slip through, and motherboard could be completely dead. If you could replace all burnt/bumped resistors/capacitors on the PCB, may be it might come back to life (before you throw the motherboard thinking it's dead) but who would go through all that hassles.  

Last year, HP recalled their laptops for faulty battery. Battery that would explode. They should recall for faulty Nvidia video chips too.

Strangely, every laptops I worked on, when I tried to find out if there is any warranty left using the service tag in the back of the laptop, I usually found it missed just by a month or two or in some cases few months. Those of you, whose laptops still working consider yourself lucky. You didn't have to go through all the agonies. May be you are not using laptop that often. HP laptops are very very fragile and it's not for long hour continuous use. It gets heated up easily and puts your motherboard components at risk because of it's carelessly assembled parts inside. And, these SOB's are damn expensive. One of my customers was like " I paid $1000 for this just last year". Damn, I could understand their frustrations. If I were you, I'll definitely look around instead of HP brand.

Oh, one more thing, I tried to talk to HP customer support if they could help me if I had a problems. I pretended I had a Black Screen Problem with my HP laptop. I was taken to some tech support guy from India or Bangladesh(I don't know but they're from that part), and they slapped me with $398 bill  for motherboard replacement plus taxes and other fees after asking me few questions. Several other lines they fired up was asking about my debit/credit account to charge me instead of giving me possible solutions. If I were some other average user, I would have fallen on their false pretense. And, I disconnected without a word.  This could be fixed with BGA reflow. But they tried to sell. Now, I consider this, as totally moneymaking scheme instead of consumer oriented. Those HP tech-support guys are coached to sell things not to help.

I'm not endorsing any other brand on my post here. Hence, my post is honest straight from the heart and not intended to defame reputation of certain brand. It's what I see and feel. With my experience, it's better off , skip over anything HP related.

Microsoft has unveiled the Arc Touch Mouse. It's artistic, it's fantastic, it's ultra-modern and it's unconventional. The Arc Touch Mouse forms itself from flat to curved shape and ergonomic to every hand. It can be used on any surface. It has 2.4 GHz Nano transceiver and Microsoft BlueTrack technology for wireless setup. Flexibility in shape is what makes this mouse unique from others. It's therefore extremely portable too.



Microsoft obviously tried to retain the effect – using haptic feedback to make little vibrations and a little speaker to make little clicks, all to simulate the feel of a mouse wheel.

A single charge on 2 AAA battries would last six months. As of right now, this Arc Touch Mouse is available as pre-order and special pre-order rate is $69.95 on major online retailers like Amazon.com. Expected shipping is on December of 2010 and price gonna go up next year if you missed the pre-order.

Click the link below to buy or pre-order online:

Deepankar Kasaju and Abhinav Kasaju, were arrested on Wednesday(Sept 15,2010) evening for allegedly sharing.. excuse me , I mean selling latest hollywood blockbusters to their subscribers. They had made quite a name on web designing field during the past decade. They are the directors of their web design firm Dreams & Ideas Pvt Ltd. Their entertainment portal cybersansar.com got them even more exposure and fame. Critics often scrutinized the half-nude portrayal of female models on their entertainment portal. May be that was their cheap stunt to get publicized quickly. Whatever, the site is still popular among teenagers with youth related articles, photographs and sections.




This recent scandal has made them bite the dust. All their career and fame is at the stake. They are now tagged as digital thieves. Piracy of digital property is ethically wrong. Stealing properties and selling them at the fraction of the cost in the black market is still rampant in the real world scenario. The convicted two brothers practiced the same act through the internet stealing digital properties and selling them. Pirating is still acknowledged in the underdeveloped countries and that most people don't think it's wrong. Digital piracy is not a new phenomenon anymore but it will definitely require new radical mechanisms of control.

These two brothers tried to take improper benefit amidst ongoing political crisis. Evidently, they might have been self-assured and confident that who would care if they stepped into digital anarchy. They sold 300 HD movies (downloaded via torrent sites as reported) for approximately US $360 a year for their special subscribers via givemehd.com . In Nepal, where per capita income is nearly US $473, it's almost inconceivable rate. Despite the fact, the sold properties worth quite more than that. Legally, it would've cost them millions of US dollars to practice this business model.

But considering the fact about Nepal's fragile policy towards cyber crimes and piracy, it's unlikely that they'll be punished severely. Nepal Police took this action only after the sting operation setup by nagariknews.com flashed into news. Reporters visited their home-based office posed as possible buyers of pirated movies and captured everything on hidden camera. Their arrest is surely causing some tension at the moment and it could be the beginning of the anti-piracy campaign in under-developed countries like Nepal. As for me, I've yet to see how long this drama will run.

Their business firm is often publicized as business partner of Worldlink, Nepal's oldest ISP(Internet Service Provider). It is also noted that they were granted high bandwidth for downloads. It is not known though that if WorldLink is equally participated on illegal bandwidth usage.

The arrested are sons of Binaya Kumar Kasaju, chief commissioner, National Information Commission of Nepal.

Update 9/24/10:
Owners of cybersansar.com, Abhinav Kasaju and Deepankar Kasaju, who were detained on charge of breaching copyright by selling High Definition films downloaded illegally through the Internet, have been set free as the police failed to file the case for "lack of sufficient evidences" and legal provisions.

Police released them Tuesday afternoon based on the advice of government attorney that their case couldn't be registered since the existing Copyright Act and E-commerce Act lack proper provisions on HD films circulation and no case was filed against them by any HD film company claiming compensations for the loss.

Metropolitan Police Range, Kathmandu had raided their office in Teku and arrested Kasaju brothers last Wednesday. src

Google once again proved it's superiority in search engine market by launching Google Instant. Today (Sept.8, 2010), they unveiled this wonder feature which makes searching effortless and extremely fast.


It's new search technology and predictive search result is instantaneous which means it shows results as you type keywords. You don't even have to click that 'Search' button anymore. I see in coming days, relevancy of that 'Search' button will be zero. Recently Google has been experimenting with lot of things. Several months ago, they amazed us with the predictive search results. That minimized the spell errors and resulted meaningful keyword input. Then, for the fun part, their simplistic Google Image/Logo has started to come into life, sometimes in the form of Pacman game and sometimes with some interactive animations. I don't know what they're upto and what they're trying to do but something is for sure, they're experimenting, they're releasing beta's and they're getting better day by day.


Google could go psychic one day, it could become earth's brain. It's becoming a digital genie, may be it won't be able to fulfill your every materialistic demand but It will be able to answer every question you ask. Google Instant is the beginning.

FYI, some of you may need to be signed up to use this Google Instant service to be effective for certain demographic or some of you may not even see what I'm talking about right now. And, certain browsers may not notice this feature at all. They're carpeting this feature all around their servers and making it as compatible as possible. So keep refreshing.. I mean your browser :)
For more read, click here.

Thank you for reading my post.

This particular malware dubbed MSIL/Zeven is currently on the radar of Microsoft. This malware infected PCs display rogue but authentic looking security alerts. Visibly, it's 99 % accurate and rapidly combing all naive victims across the networks. Certain group of computer users highly sensitive to online threats were among the victims.  This malware has  packed in such a psychological and detail factor(except few negligible spelling error) that even the cleverest eyes could be easily deceived.

This malware when loaded, displays the "Reported Attack Site" or "Reported phishing site" page in the exact style of the firefox browser. In addition to that, it offers you to update. This 'update offer' part is neatly done.



Update freak without a doubt would click that link. And, when that happens, it works on it's way. It then downloads,installs and launches rogue Win7 AV (Windows 7 Antivirus) with all legitimate looking UI.



It gives out number of threat warnings. To exterminate those threats, it offers you to buy their updates.




 You are  then forwarded to legitimate looking Microsoft Security Essentials page. To make things look quite convincing, all the links on that rogue page are pointed back to Microsoft.


Microsoft has announced a detail information on this latest havoc and a way to delete this off your system.
Click here for Microsoft Support to deal with this MSIL/Zeven malware.

Personally, I also recommend you to use Malwarebytes Anti-Malware software.

It’s common knowledge that the HTC HD2 is one of the most capable devices currently on the market running Windows Mobile. In fact, it may be the single most capable device ever to run Windows Mobile.


Regardless, Microsoft’s latest attempt at a mobile operating system with Windows Phone 7 is quickly approaching with hardware manufacturers everywhere gearing up their own offerings. Seeing how the HTC HD2 was such a successful device, speculation regarding a Windows Phone 7 powered HTC HD3 has become the general consensus.

Today, a supposed spec sheet for the HD3 has leaked out giving us a look at what seems to be hardware components that are too good to be true. As you can see from the above pictured spec sheet, the HD3 is said to feature a 4.5-inch screen, a 1.5GHz processor, 1GB of RAM, an 8 megapixel camera and more.

While it wouldn’t be too far off to dream of a device with such specs, it also wouldn’t be too hard for someone to do whip up a fake list in Photoshop.

We’ll have to wait until someone officially involved with the matter comes forth to speak more.

src here

Garmin's Car GPS devices are outstanding. I've one with me and I always wondered if there were phone capability on it's GPS devices.  And here we have Garminfone Android Phone.


The first Android-powered smartphone fully-integrated with Garmin's premium GPS software, the 3G-enabled Garminfone smartphone gives you the same navigation experience found on Garmin's standalone GPS devices--including voice-guided and on-screen directions, real-time traffic, weather, and gas prices. The mobile Web browser includes enhanced functions, including pinch and zoom capability and embedded location awareness that links information found on the Web to navigation and mapping functions--enabling you to navigate directly to a location from a Web page.


The Garminfone is ready to go with the included car kit--simply plug it in and snap it in the car mount and you'll be on your way in no time. Garminfone also features a bright 3.5-inch display, and a 3.0-megapixel camera with geotagging capabilities so you can share location details about the places around you.


The Garminfone provides easy access to both personal and corporate e-mail, calendars, and contacts supported by Exchange Server and Gmail. Other features include 4 GB of internal memory, microSD memory expansion (with 2 GB card included), Wi-Fi networking (802.11b/g), Bluetooth for hands-free devices and stereo music streaming, multi-format digital media player, and up to 4 hours of talk time.

It's built-in GPS software is what set it apart from the rest. Why worry to pay another over $100 for extra GPS map/software??

If you're planning to get one, at the moment, you've go with T-Mobile's plan.

KeyScrambler is a must-have security tool for every internet user. It encrypts your keystrokes and scrambles the output defeating every keyloggers' logging mechanism. The only thing malicious keyloggers would record
are those meaningless,scrambled texts on their saves.




This is by far the most important tool you should have if you do a lot of online logins. Time is critical and we can't totally rely on Antivirus, AntiSpywares and Firewalls only. This will add a layer to your computer security.

When you install this, reboot your computer to make sure it installs in kernal level properly which means it will directly interfere with keyboard drivers to give you added protection.

KeyScrambler can be downloaded free as a browser addon.

Here is a download link.

Last month, Apple Inc must have been devastated with Federal Communications Commission decision declaring jailbreaking of iPhone as legal. Everyone is jumping on the bandwagon. It widened the scope of app use.

A jailbreak lets you run apps/themes/tweaks etc not approved by Apple Inc. It lets you however way you want your device be. When you pay for the device, you must own the device. Nobody can tell you what to do and what not to do. If Apple Inc is to say that, then it should distribute it's iPhone for free otherwise, it has no right to control the device once it's sold and needs to shut up.

In my opinion, it all started with when Apple rejected Google Voice app last year. The silent dispute was running ever since. Finally, the decision was made and Apple Inc was knelt down. As we all know, there was some concern about Google's contribution(for ex: Youtube's Obama girl on every keyword 'obama' ?) in the last presidential campaign that helped a lot to Obama Administration(remember President Obama's every announcement via YOUTUBE CHANNEL). News were out about the tie between Obama Administration and Google. I think there is something to do with this. Must have been lobbyists work on Washington but whatever, this was the greatest decision to make jailbreaking of iPhone legal.

Apple forgot they packed in computer's functionality on their phone. That means their phone has got their own proprietary Operating System. It's a small computer by itself with phone capabilities. And, with small computer, It can access Internet and when it touches the ground of internet, it has no right to restrict things on the internet. Everything on the cloud shouldn't be personalized for it's mere selfish benefits. But Apple as evil as it could be, tried to restrict services on the internet. It was practicing activities which was against the net neutrality when FCC is actively supporting it. With net neutrality, what I understand is that no online company(network provider, ISP etc) has right to restrict/ban the use of certain internet contents based on prejudice or their special needs/benefits. Apple Inc was needed to be taught that. From a consumer's perspective, this was indeed a noble decision.

If any of you need to jailbreak your iPhone, there is an easy way. Check this site out:
jailbreakme.com
Visit this site from your iPhone's safari browser, and follow the steps thereafter. And, if you've decided to use this site to jailbreak your phone, make sure you've not updated your iPhone past 4.0.1. This site won't support jailbreaking iPhone if it's past version 4.0.1. May be in the future.

There are some side issues though. Apple won't support  your device if your device is rendered useless in the course. So, with this you void the warranty. But, jailbroken iPhone can be reverted back to it's original condition thereafter allowing you to follow up with the official Apple updates if you change your mind later on.


Or completely avoid messing up with that expensive brick, and get something else other than iPhone.

Thank you for reading my post.