Author: Swadesh Parasher

How we test security tools and malware blocking [A Brief overview]

In 21st century, everyone hires a digital knight that fights off or blocks – vulnerable attacks , thieves, spy or other harmful intruders trying to get into your castle (Pc, laptop or other digital device). Before assigning such protector to do the hard work to live your life without any worries, you need to test their ability. At DigitFreak we do the same, when we test the security tools for your PC or other portable devices.

We deliberately test the software for extensive protection and prevention ability. Some of them delivers near perfect results, while other just give up. Testing a security tool isn’t easy — we have to deal with the fair amount of bottlenecks or our own limitation to clone the infections and vulnerability.

At DigitFreak we test every security tools manually with our own custom malware and virus scripts along with other virus samples collected for testing. We deliberately infect a protected system to find out if it is capable of fighting it off.

Testing with Virus samples and custom scripts:

The DigitFreak virus and script sample includes malware, scareware, adware, worms, rootkit and Trojans. We also use free online virus test scripts provided by eicar.com and DigitFreak’s custom virus script.

We used to test the security tools with the premium keylogger software, but most of the security tools are immune to it, thus we decided to shoot it when really necessary.

We do full manual update of the security tool we are reviewing – to make sure that it has the latest virus database to provide best results. We also make sure that the program itself has the latest build, version number and the original md5 checksum.

We bombard the security tool with the virus sample and rate it for the number of successful detection. If the tool detects 90% + virus sample, we rate it 9 or even 10 score for virus detection and best virus database and algorithm.

We also load various known malware-hosting urls to test whether the tool we are testing is capable of holding off the user from visting it and thus, preventing the overall damage and rate the software accordingly.

Live detection of viruses, vulnerability and security breach is also essential – we check if the tool automatically detects the virus from the virus sample folders or if we need to open each folder to let the tool detect the security risk for the computer.

There are various other factors that we need to test to score the test tool effectively, like – virus removal, detection, firewall, url blocking, restrictive control, virus database, prevention and custom controls.

Prevention is better than cure – so we basically concentrate on the detection ability of the security tool to make sure that it provides maximum security by testing it with our virus samples.

Naturally a product scores a full ten points for each threat it eliminates and detects on sight. If any of the virus sample is somehow managed to escape the security – we execute the program in the sandbox (sandboxie) to note how the product reacts.

At the end we include the results from the independent lab test and merge with our own results for optimal test results. DigitFreak expert reviewing team follows these guidelines to bring the best test results and scores.

July 30, 2013
[How to] block undesired Facebook game invitation for good
I will admit — I was one of the victim who had probably never spent a single day without playing the CityVille or Farmville at least once.

Then there came a deteriorating moment when 40% of ancestors of online gaming on Facebook started following up with what is more important in life and followed up with ditching this whole time killer crap. We started hating it so much that – even a single invitation from one of our old “gaming friends” irritates us!!!

Let’s dump my individual scenario (however, it is true for most of us) and accept the fact that you don’t like the game invitation at all. If you are reading this article it signifies the same. So, let’s figure out how to block these game invitations for good.

Option 1 : Block it!

If you don’t like a friend of yours sending an invitation for Candy crush, CityVille, FarmVille, Lucky Slots, Dragon City, Hidden Express, Diamond Dash or millions of other apps on Facebook. Actually, you can block any Facebook app – let it be game, social, health or other services.
- Just go to the accounts settings
- Click on Blocking tab
- You’ll find four different level to choose your invitation restrictions – users, event, app or to block the whole app at once.
- You can provide the username, event name or app name.
Option 2: Custom mode

You can also block apps from your previous game/app invitation lists. To use this option go to appcenter and click on requests at the bottom left corner of the page. There you can also block future invites for a specific app, stop a certain user from sending you requests, or both.
- Click on Requests tab.
- Click on “x” as stated in the above image. To block the individual app click on “Block Appname” (where “appname” is the name of the app you are about to block).
- Confirm the app block in the next pop-up window.
Option 3: Block from notification

Stopping the onslaught on game invite notifications is actually as simple as clicking an X button next to the offending notice. Yes, it would be oh-so-nice if Facebook could learn that after clicking “no” 37 times, you don’t want to play. But it’s just not that smart (or maybe it’s laziness), so turn ’em off.

Doing all this game app-blocking business may have put you in a cleaning mood, so why not go the extra mile? Check out the apps you yourself have installed in the past and delete those you don’t use anymore by clicking on the X next to the app. You can also modify the visibility of your app’s posts on your behalf by clicking on the Settings link.
July 28, 2013
Ubuntu edge Smartphone – dual boots into android and Ubuntu, transforms into fully-fledged PC [Hands on Video]
Ubuntu edge is carefully crafted device that is capable of providing cutting-edge features and introduce us to the new technology.

Ubuntu edge – is reportedly a Powerful PC in your hand which can be transformed into a fully fledged PC when connected to a display source via HDMI. Conical wrote:

We’re fascinated by converged computing, the idea that the smartphone in your pocket can also be the brain of the PC on your desk. We’ve shaped Ubuntu so you can transition seamlessly between the two environments. Now all that’s needed is a phone that’s designed from the ground up to be a PC as well.

Conical doesn’t want to compromise in any factor when it comes to the build quality and comfort of using the device. According to the information posted on the website indiegogo, which is where the crowd funding is currently being carried on — the gadget sports 4.5-inch display protected by pure sapphire glass (a material so hard only diamond could scratch it) — so, you can stop worrying about the gadget retaining the scratch on the screen.

Since, the device is supposedly to provide the fully-fledged PC functionality, it will be powered by most powerful multi-core processor available, at least 4GB Ram and a massive 128 GB of storage. Yup, you read it correct and we haven’t made any typo.

Next-generation hardware deserves innovative software. The Ubuntu Edge will dual-boot both the Ubuntu phone OS and Android, and convert into a fully integrated Ubuntu desktop PC.

The overall user interface is so simple and clutter free that you don’t even need a home screen (neither physical or on-screen). You just need to navigate by swiping over an edge of the screen; open your favorite apps on the left edge, switch instantly between opens apps from the right and use the system and app tool bars at the top and bottom respectively.

If you are familiar with Ubuntu work environment, you must be pretty aware of the integrated notification system that provides information and notification about emails, messages and another application at one central notification center — Ubuntu edge, promises to provide the similar experience including the text messages, emails and social media posts.

Conical has planned the roll out in various steps – willing to offer full convergence from Android environment. On the day one of the launch you’ll be able to launch Ubuntu from your mobile phone using Ubuntu for android app and you’ll receive a free software update that adds this desktop integration to Ubuntu mobile as well, leaving you with the fully integrated Ubuntu desktop OS.

The smartphone will get regular updates and support for at least 3 years, so you can expect the more power to fill in as time passes.

If you want to place an order for this incredibly powerful device, you can do so by contributing the crowd funding campaign. Conical has lowered the price of the gadget :

The crowd funding campaign is set for $32 Million in 30 days, contribute to get the best and help them fulfill the requirements! For more information visit their campaign page – Indiegogo

Specifications:
- Dual boot Ubuntu mobile OS and Android
- Fully integrated Ubuntu desktop PC when docked
- Fastest multi-core CPU, 4GB RAM, 128GB storage
- 4.5in 1,280 x 720 HD sapphire crystal display
- 8mp low-light rear camera, 2mp front camera
- Dual-LTE, dual-band 802.11n Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4, NFC
- GPS, accelerometer, gyro, proximity sensor, compass, barometer
- Stereo speakers with HD audio, dual-mic recording, Active Noise Cancellation
- MHL connector, 3.5mm jack
- Silicon-anode Li-Ion battery
- 64 x 9 x 124mm
*Specifications are subject to change
July 24, 2013
Recent NSA scandal encourages anonymous search engine duckduckgo with a traffic boom!

Remember only few weeks back there was a whole fuss going on online about the NSA’s secret operation named PRISM that collects sensitive data from search engines and social networks like Google, Facebook, Yahoo etc. Well just a few weels after that a simple search engine named duckduckgo.com came under the spotlight.

The matter started when Guarding wrote about this seach engine owned by Gabriel Weinberg which vows that it does not collect any type of user data unlike Google and other search engines who constantly store everything related to a user through cookies and cache. Well it was just a start, and only few hours later he started noticing spikes in the number of visitors on his site. According to him the web traffic has increased by almost 50% of its normal status. And Guess what it looks like it ain’t gonna stop since more and more revelations about the NSA and PRISM are coming into the light.

According to weinberg “It happened with the release by the Guardian about Prism. We started seeing an increase right when the story broke, before we were covered in the press. From serving 1.7m searches a day at the start of June, it hit 3m within a fortnight. ” say he who is currently living in paoli, Philadelphia.

Before this incident almost nobody must have ever heard of this Search engine as it is not famous at all or comes under the alternative option in the browsers on desktop or mobiles. Different from the common day search engine, this one does not work on any cookie or cache so there is no personal data stored about any user and there is nothing there to give to the Goovernment.

Weinberg says that someday he got the idea that he could actually build up something that will be secure, anonymous and efficient unlike Google which is currently showing make trash links just because many webmasters have cracked the search engine’s algorithm. He hooked up with web services like wikipedia, Yelp etc to create something that was accurate and focused.

In the matter of public privacy in the case of search strings, he says: “I kind of backed into that.” It wasn’t a political decision, but a personal one. “It’s hard to define my politics. I take every issue seriously and come to my own conclusion. I don’t really feel like I belong to any political party in the US … I guess I’m more on the liberal side.”

For the company storing anyone’s data and search history is like hacking into other’s lives and thats bad. They reveal so much about anyone, that if one could know how much Google knows about a person then he might even change his total identity! Whatever be the future, we can now know for sure that there are some who are not selling our privacy just for some ads and revenues.

Digitfreak is with duckduckgo.com, where are you?

July 11, 2013
[How to] connect to a FTP server and transfer files to your computer [Filezilla]

FTP (File Transfer Protocol) has been a popular method to transfer files easily over the network. If you are a tech savvy or managing a server for your website or contents – you might have stumbled upon this handy feature.

FTP is quite useful when you need to transfer files over a network or to your computer from a server (or vise Versa).

If you are a webmaster or web developer – this is something you use on a regular basis. It helps you effectively manage your files on the server and upload or download the contents with ease.

Needless to say that most of the people are using seedboxes for downloading contents over p2p network and sometimes they just can’t figure out how to transfer the files from their seedbox to the computer.

Some of us are not too tech savvy and wonder how to do this magic. If you are reading this article – you must be looking for the same answer.

Instructions:

1. Download & Run FileZilla (You can use any FTP client according to your choice)

2. Go to File > Site Manager

3. In the new popup window > click on “New Site”

4. Now you have to type your FTP information given by your server provider or if you are managing your own website on cPanel, your HOST will be – “Your primary domain on the server”, User – “Cpanel username” and Password – “cPanel password”.

You don’t usually have to provide the ftp port, you can simply leave it empty. If you host server configured the FTP to be accessed on a custom port, you should ask them for the same. You can contact your server provider for all these informations.

5. Click on “connect” and you can see full directory listing of your server’s file. You can delete, upload or download the files from the server to your computer or vice versa.

Alternate Methods

I. Quick connect:

If you are looking for quick option to connect your server via FTP temporarily – this could be your saviour. The Filezilla provides “quickconnect” option, which enable you to connect to your FTP server without much hassle.

* Just open Filezilla and fill up the information provided by your server provider.

* Click on “quickconnect”

* You’ll find the full directory listing of the server in “Remote site” block.

II. Import FTP configuration from cPanel Account

You can simply import the FTP configuration from your server’s cPanel account. It is the easiest method to connect to your cPanel Powered server.

* Login to your cPanel account

* You’ll find “FTP accounts”, under “Files” (as shown in image below):

* click on the FTP account you want to download the configuration file for.

* You’ll find some FTP clients listed under the FTP account name, click on “FTP Configuration file”

* Click on save when prompted.

* Now open FileZilla > File > Import

* Browse to the configuration file you downloaded.

* click “ok” if prompted.

* Go to “Site Manager” > select your site name from left panel and click on connect

* You’ll get connected to your server.

If you are too confused with the above information, just have a look at the video below:

June 30, 2013
Digg reader is now open for Public, android app missing – Hands on [promising]

Its only a matter of time when Google reader seizes to death and abandons all of the news enthusiastic for nothing. All about-to-be-former, “Google reader” users are searching for an alternative, including me.

If you think there are lots of alternative to Google reader – you might just wrong. Yes, there are many feed syndicator available, but they all are not so promising and are different from the experience, Google reader used to provide.

The new Feedly (a magazine type, flipboard style reader) which tripled its user base in last 3 months, sure is rich in graphics and can be very friendly for users who just needs to be updated with the latest news from few of their websites.

But, for the tech savvy like us, who used to dig into lot deeper to dozens of websites everyday using Google reader – must be disappointed because we don’t have much options.

See Also: New buzz suggests Facebook is building a Flipboard style rss feed reader

Facebook announced that they are going to launch a new social feed reader for mobile phones powered by android and iOS, and sources confirms it will be another flipboard-styled socially-optimized app which is customized for that particular user. – This isn’t we tech guys looking for.

After following the news on AOL, trying “the old reader” and many other alternative, I couldn’t agree more that “digg reader” is something I was waiting for quite a long time.

See Also: Digg to launch Google reader alternative (public beta) on June 26

“digg reader” is now open for public. I am few of the lucky ones, who got early access to the reader as a beta tester. Here is my experience:

Login in and importing data from Google reader

Importing your Google reader Rss feed list has never been so easy. You just have to click on “Import Google Reader” when you login to the website for the first time – and god! it was too fast and easy. All my feeds and lists are intact and they are listed the same way it used to be on Google reader.

I can even manage my feeds and sort them into folders and view the most popular ones at the same place. The in-built popularity meter comes very handy when you want filter your feeds.

So far, it looks promising enough.

Adding Feeds

My first curiosity was to figure out how digg manages the feeds and displays output. I must say, it didn’t disappointed me. Adding feeds to digg reader is easy, you just need to click on “Add”, which is located at the bottom left corner of the webpage and paste the RSS/Atom feed url and press enter.

You can select the specific category if it is mentioned in the feed and sort them accordingly. The new feed will start collecting information from the website immediately.

The UI

Interface is pretty basic and resembles that of “Google reader” but in more “digg style”. It is almost perfect and minimalist – loads quick, you will feel like home again. Digg manages to bind the former Google users to the service and it is quite promising.

You’ll get two important viewing options available – “List View” and “Expanded View”. List view – shows your feeds content title without the summary or any other details, you can click on the title if you want to expand to the summary – quite useful if you don’t want to load everything in one go. Expanded view – as the name suggests, it will show all the feeds with full content and graphics.

KeyBoard Shortcuts

Well, if you have been juggling with your feeds on Google Reader with the Keyboard shortcuts like me – then you will be happy to know that it replicates almost the same keyboard shortcuts as we used to have on Google. It makes it so easy to use and it feels like you are already familiar with the digg reader because it just has everything you used to have with additional features.

Tightly integrated to digg

Digg reader, obviously is tightly integrated with the main website digg. You can digg your feeds right into the reader and give them addition boost. You can tweet the feeds or share them on your Facebook account.

Settings

Digg provides some very basic settings for the users to manage – so you don’t have much of the things to worry about, just little tweaks that you can set and forget about. The basic settings allows you to update your email ID, set unread counts (the unread feed item counts as we used to have on Google reader), share your digg feed page to anyone or share your feed list.

Read later block – enables you to add instapaper, pocket and readability. You can link your facebook or twitter accounts for easy access to the website.

and the last one – which is going to be the least used option – “Delete your Digg account”.

Portability

Digg reader promised to get it users a portable experience on their mobile phones and tablets. Currently only iOS app is available for download but digg team promised to release the apps for other platforms too, including Android.

So, this is it?

If you are looking for the alternative for Google reader which resemble your favorite feed syndicator in every possible way – this is it! You can dig all your news and articles from all over the internet like you used to do it before. If you are tech savvy like me and likes the old-fashioned way to keep in touch with – “What’s going on the internet” and the things you are interested in, “digg reader” can be your home sweet home.

June 29, 2013