Japan police arrests a 14-year-old for creating ransomware

While the computers affected by the WannaCry ransonware around the world last month are still trying to return to normalcy, a 14 year-old teenager from Japan in the meanwhile was arrested on Monday for developing a malware similar to the WannaCry malware.
For those unfamiliar, WannaCry ransomware exploited a weakness in Microsoft’s Windows operating system and went on to infect more than 3,00,000 computers in 150 countries within 72 hours last month. The WannaCry ransomware cryptoworm encrypted data and demanded payment in virtual currency Bitcoin in exchange for a password to unlock data.
The 14-year-old boy, who is a secondary school student in Osaka Prefecture, is accused of creating a malware designed to infect and encrypt computers to financially exploit victims. The malware in question has been uploaded by the teenager on a foreign website that included instructions and procedures for the users to download, install and use it, according to sources quoted by the Kyodo news agency.

                                  The student living in the city of Takatsuki admitted to the allegations said that he wanted to test his ability as a programmer. He supposedly went on to learn and create the ransomware all by himself.
“I tested my skills, and I could make one,” he was quoted as saying to police.

He also said that he had participated in a computer skills class on how to assemble a personal computer while he was in elementary school, according to the sources. He collected all the necessary data from overseas websites to create the ransomware on his home computer in January, which took him about three days to complete it.
This ransomware, which has been downloaded more than 100 times, allowed a user to infect the victim’s computer, demanding in Japanese that a payment be made in digital currency. Apparently, the malicious malware created by the teenager has infected computers of about 100 users, who have been demanded a payoff, in the form of virtual currency. However, there have been no reports of financial exploitation.
The young boy, whose identity has not yet been revealed, also reportedly used social media to lure users into downloading the program for free.
The malware was discovered by the Kanagawa Prefectural Police during ‘cyber patrolling’ duties in January, who confiscated the teen’s computer during a house search in April, reports The Japan Times. The young boy revealed to the investigating authorities that he created the ransomware “out of curiosity” and because he wanted to “become famous.”

The users who downloaded the malware could also be charged with violating the law on “acquiring electromagnetic records by illegal command,” said the sources. This is the first arrest involving a ransomware-related crime in Japan, said police.

According to Trend Micro Inc., a major IT security provider, ransomware was found on more than 65,000 computers in Japan in 2016 alone, which is around 10 times more than the previous year.


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How Does a GPS Works....??

 

The Global Positioning System (GPS) is a network of about 30 satellites orbiting the Earth at an altitude of 20,000 km. The system was originally developed by the US government for military navigation but now anyone with a GPS device, be it a SatNav, mobile phone or handheld GPS unit, can receive the radio signals that the satellites broadcast.
Wherever you are on the planet, at least four GPS satellites are ‘visible’ at any time. Each one transmits information about its position and the current time at regular intervals. These signals, travelling at the speed of light, are intercepted by your GPS receiver, which calculates how far away each satellite is based on how long it took for the messages to arrive.
Once it has information on how far away at least three satellites are, your GPS receiver can pinpoint your location using a process called trilateration.

 

Trilateration

Imagine you are standing somewhere on Earth with three satellites in the sky above you. If you know how far away you are from satellite A, then you know you must be located somewhere on the red circle. If you do the same for satellites B and C, you can work out your location by seeing where the three circles intersect. This is just what your GPS receiver does, although it uses overlapping spheres rather than circles.
The more satellites there are above the horizon the more accurately your GPS unit can determine where you are.

 

GPS and Relativity

GPS satellites have atomic clocks on board to keep accurate time. General and Special Relativity however predict that differences will appear between these clocks and an identical clock on Earth.
General Relativity predicts that time will appear to run slower under stronger gravitational pull – the clocks on board the satellites will therefore seem to run faster than a clock on Earth.
Furthermore, Special Relativity predicts that because the satellites’ clocks are moving relative to a clock on Earth, they will appear to run slower.
The whole GPS network has to make allowances for these effects –  proof that Relativity has a real impact.

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Teenagers Reaction towards Windows 95. MUST WATCH

 The majority of teenagers alive today weren’t alive in the 90s, meaning the oldest version of Windows they’re likely to be familiar with is Windows XP.

If that tidbit makes you feel old, you might not want to watch the latest React video from Fine Brothers Entertainment, in which a bunch of teenagers are exposed to the wonders of mid-90s computing and Windows 95 for the first time in their lives. They’re not impressed.

It starts with first impressions.
“The fact that the monitor is bigger than the actual computer itself says a lot” said Daniel, 17 years old, who is young enough to only have vague memories of monitors and TVs that aren’t flat.
“I’ve no clue what year this is from, but I feel like it was before the year I was born,” said Geneva, age 18, after seeing the mid-90s Dell. Her math checks out.

The design flaws we all got used to are evident right away. When asked to turn on the computer, everyone hit the big button on the monitor and waited, something we all probably remember doing at some  point. When the computer was turned on, the reactions kept coming.
“I don’t think I’ve ever heard a computer make these sounds before in my life,” said Morgan, age 19, making anyone who felt nostalgic upon hearing the floppy drive click instantly feel 10 years older.
Then the teens waited for the BIOS screen to go away.


“This is taking a while,” said Karan Brar, reminding the entire planet what life was like back in ancient times when computers took five minutes to start up and Pterodactylus savaged our cattle.
Things don’t get much better when the operating system’s boot screen is revealed.
“95, as in, like, 1995?” asked Alicia, age 16, who has no memories of the 90s but will be able to vote in just two years.
Then the operating system finally booted.
“Everything looks so dull and ancient,” said Brar.
“It seems more rough, the edges are more sharp, it’s a little more impersonal,” said Nora, age 18, who judging by that comment might have a future as a graphic designer.
But perhaps the hardest thing to understand for the teens was the lack of wireless connectivity.
“How do you get on the Internet if there’s no Wi-Fi?” asked Alicia, as though the question itself were nonsense.

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Some HP PCs are logging keystrokes by accident.

Privacy and security are hot topics lately given the amount of malware that is constantly circulating throughout the internet by criminals and even government agencies with the purpose of accessing our personal and business information. At the same time, information is sometimes gathered inadvertently that could nevertheless end up making its way to nefarious parties.

In many cases, issues arise where a function that is meant to make things easier for users ends up being poorly executed. One example of exactly that phenomena seems to have created by an audio driver that has shipped in a number of HP PCs.

Security firm Modezero discovered code in a Conexant audio driver that supports an HP feature that enables controlling audio hardware by using keyboard combinations that toggle features on and off. One example would be a hotkey for enabling and disabling the microphone.

This driver apparently intercepts and saves keyboard input in order to control the functionality. While it is meant to only grab onto the required key presses, it seems to grab all the key inputs and saves them to a file. Worse yet, the file is not encrypted, meaning it would be easy to access by malware in real time or after the fact.

modzero

Although the problem is somewhat mitigated by the fact that the file is overwritten after each start, the researchers note that it could exist in backup files and could thus be recovered well after the fact. You can check if your HP PC is affected by looking for the programs “C:\Windows\System32\MicTray64.exe” or “C:\Windows\System32\MicTray.exe” exist and renaming them if they do. If a “C:\Users\Public\MicTray.log” file exists, then that should be deleted.

We reached out to HP to get its take on the situation, and it provided the following response:

“HP is committed to the security of its customers and we are aware of an issue on select HP PCs. HP has no access to customer data as a result of this issue. We have identified a fix and will make it available to our customers.”

This is obviously a mistake on the part of the driver developers and, hopefully, HP will resolve the issue soon. We note that there is no evidence that any malware or other software has made use of the data that is collected by the driver and so there is no reason to panic at this point. Nevertheless, keep an eye out for an update from HP, which should then be implemented as soon as possible.

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Let Google Remember things for you.

How do you remember important things that you think you might forget? Some rely on their brain to memorize information while others prefer  writing things down on post-it notes. There are ton of digital note-taking apps – from Evernote to Trello – that can also help you remember anything with ease.

There’s another interesting option from Google that you may wish to explore for remembering things. It’s called Google Assistant, the voice assistant app that is now available on newer Android phones. If you don’t have one, you can still use Google assistant inside the Google Allo app that is available for both iPhone and Android.

Let Google Remember Things for you

To get started, say “OK Google” to launch Google Assistant on your phone and then say “Remember ..” followed by information you would like Google to remember. For instance, you could say:

• Remember my favorite color is blue
• Remember that my registration number is Z1234
• Remember that I parked the car in the 2nd level
• Remember that my hotel room safe code is 6666

You can launch the Google Assistant anytime later and ask Google for information that was previously stored.

How to ask what Google remembers?

You could say something like “What did I say about my favorite color?” or “What’s my registration number?” If Google is unable to understand your question, you could say “What did I ask you to remember” and it will show a list of 5 most recent things you’ve asked Google to remember.

How to Clear Google’s Memory?

If the list has grown big, you can also use your voice to instruct Google to forget things it remembers. You could say “Forget what I said about my favorite color” or say “What did I ask you to remember” and tap the “Forget #” option to erase any of the listed items from Google’s memory.

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Facebook Realeased Details on Their Brain-Computer Interface

In Brief  

Regina Dugan, a former DARPA executive and current head of Facebook's mysterious Building 8, has released information about the work that the social media giant has been doing on brain-computer-interfaces meant to let you "communicate using only your mind."

Facebook’s annual developers’ conference is in full swing this week. Ultimately, the event serves as an opportunity for the company to unveil their most innovative products and reveal key details about upcoming projects. And nothing is more promising or intriguing than what’s coming out of Facebook’s mysterious Building 8 (B8).
Currently, we know very little about B8, as none of their projects have been officially detailed, but rumors are swirling, and it’s not like we don’t know anything. We have some big, overarching information about the general work being done. It seems that B8 is working on four primary projects. These are said to include augmented reality, drones, cameras, and direct brain-computer interfaces (BCIs).
Yes, Facebook is working on computers that are meant to interface with our brains.

   

Click to View Full Infographic

During the opening event yesterday, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced that, today, speakers at the conference would discuss where they are in relation to their work on the BCI technology.At the event, he stated that we would “hear from Regina Dugan about some of the work that [they are] doing to build even further out beyond augmented reality, and that includes work around direct brain interfaces that are going to, eventually, one day, let you communicate using only your mind.”
Dugan is a former DARPA executive. She also worked for Google’s advanced projects division. Now, Dugan has finally released information about the work B8 has been doing.

• Facebook is working to develop a brain-computer interface that will, in the future, allow individuals to communicate with other people without speaking. Ultimately, they hope to develop a technology that allows individuals to “speak” using nothing but their thoughts—unconstrained by time or distance.
• They want to create “category defining products” that are “social” first, products that allow us to form more human connections and, in the end, unite the digital world of the internet with the physical world and the human mind.
• Dugan notes that the brain produces about 1 terabyte per a second. However, through speech, we can only transmit information to others at about 100 bytes per a second. Facebook wants to get all of the information that is transmitted to our speech center out of the “brain” and into the world (to allow us to get it to others at will).
• For their beginning work, they hope to allow all humans to “type” and “click” through our brains in order to interact with our technology. For example, people with ALS could type—not with eye blinks—but with their thoughts. Thus, they wish to “decode speech” and allow all individuals to communicate using our brain waves.
• Initially, their goal is to allow people to type 5 times faster than people can type on a smartphone straight from their brain. This means that they are developing technologies that can “read” the human brain in order to transmit this information.
• Next, they will work to allow people to “type” a staggering 100 words a minute using their thoughts. That’s far, far faster than most humans can type on a computer. The average person types between 38 and 40 words per minute.
• They have developed actuators that allow people to “hear” through their skin.Ultimately, with Facebook’s technology, humans can “feel” words.
• Eventually, they want to allow people to think something and send the thought to someone’s skin. Additionally, they will allow people to think something in one language and have a person receive the thought in an entirely different language.     

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Top 5 Cities In India And In The World having High Internet Speed

Hyderabad became the first Indian city to get 1 Gbps internet connectivity, courtesy of ACT Fibernet, making it the first time we’ve received city-wide coverage of that kind of speed anywhere in India. So who exactly were the reigning champions before then? And just how do we stand up to the rest of the world?

 We’ve put together a list of the cities with the highest average internet speeds across the globe, as well as in India. Take note, we’ve measure this capability based on the average download speed in each city, pulling data from both Akamai and Ookla. Also keep in mind that all speeds here are listed in Mbps (Megabits per second). Here’s what we found out:

1. Seoul

      Seoul, the capital of South Korea,  grabbed the top spot for fastest internet in 2016, measuring in at an average of 26.1 Mbps. Some of the fastest connections in the city offer up to 1.5 Gbps speeds. 

2. Hong Kong

Hong Kong comes in second place, with the country’s financial capital showing an average of 21.9 Mbps across services.

3. Singapore

Called the most “tech-ready nation” by the World Economic Forum, Singapore comes in at a close third, with 20.2 Mbps being the average download speed.

4. Tokyo

The most populous metropolitan area in the world and capital of Japan, Tokyo, comes in fourth with an average 19.6 Mbps broadband speed.


5. Taiwan

The island nation of Taiwan, often in contention with the government of the People’s Republic of China over its status, brings up fifth place with a 15.6 Mbps download speed average.

On paper, India does fairly well for itself if you just look at the top cities in the country. We average out at about 13.271 Mbps in download speeds across the nation, but which cities rate the best.

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