Hacking ...

This is part of life, computers get hacked and any major company, institution, government, insurance, banks, credit cards, oil companies, social media, news networks, Facebook, Tweeter, Amazon, Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, Apple, AVS, ABC, CNN, ...everyone.
Yesterday for example, there was a major cyber attack across the US and overseas. We all read the news and many of us were directly affected by it. I, personally was aware of something strange on my PC @ around 10:00 AM Pacific Time. And not only that but for the last month or more there is some slowness and underground activity going on and there is not much @ all I can do about it unless getting a new PC and start fresh all over again.
Like most people I don't know anything about how people can access private information from our computers. But some people are experts on that task, like Edward Snowden and many more computer nerds like him...in Russia, China, North Korea, etc.

• Yesterday ? http://thechronicleherald.ca/world/...complex-stunning-breach-of-internet-stability

• Big one ? http://money.cnn.com/2015/08/05/technology/aramco-hack/

I was surprised that no one mentioned it here @ WBF. So I waited a full day and here she is the thread about hacking as a way of life, and it's going to get worse as we move forward. We'll get info that is classified, we'll learn more, and we'll experience some major inconveniences too...economic, social and universal.

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Some companies that have been hacked, with their customer's private info...passwords, credit card numbers, bank statements, deals, personal social security numbers, etc., wait years sometimes to let their customers know! This is no fun for for all the people doing business on the Internet. Spies can see you through your video cameras on your laptops and PCs and they can hear you through the microphones. They can invade your life and manipulate it by emptying your savings and personal files. They can steal your identity and juggle with it.

I think it's important to discuss on the ways to protect ourselves against the invaders, the hackers. And the FBI and the CIA don't seem to be prepared against those type of attacks. And even less so all the Internet companies, corporations, conglomerations, social media, all websites and forums.

Technology is great, informatique of the Internet highway is great, but security is totally lacking. Every single day there are more and more victims with their lives destroyed.

Anyway, this is the general "hacking" thread. Who knows, tomorrow someone might hack your music collection stored in your PC's files!?! And steal it from you!
What are you going to do, start to buy LPs and CDs again? That's one way to protect your music investment.
Another one is to own nothing, and just streaming. But how many members @ WBF are part of that group?

Ok, if you feel that you were violated from hacking on your PC, this is the place to reveal your tumults.
Yesterday I was certainly annoyed by the extreme slowness from some websites and news media. And it's not getting more speed from my Internet service provider that is going to help, because even them are tracking my activities (data), and my web browsers love to harass me with selling products adds. Those adds are so powerful that they slow down simple normal activities like reading. This is another form of hacking and infringing on people's privacy by bombardments of adds and bad links and dangerous links and ...

Is this the new revolution that is going to break our system of corruptions by exposing them? Yes I know; it's a strange way to put it but a true reality nonetheless.
We have to protect our interests by a secret system of strong securities. And that is exactly where companies invest the less. Everything is about profits @ the expense of breaches from our most precious sources of information. It's like the wild west. If we want to protect ourselves we have to build fortresses that are impenetrable. We need big sets of eyes in the sky...telescopes, drones, ...that are constantly monitoring every suspicious activities from suspicious people.
It's almost like that each person needs his own guardian angel, his own judge.

Did some of you were directly affected by yesterday's major cyber attack?

I don't know Yash, I have no clue. If it is that easy for someone without special skills, how come the big companies aren't better secured?
Security seems to be the major downfall, as kids can hack the FBI, the CIA, the governments, Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Apple, etc.
They can steal billions of passwords and personal private information, all companies compounded.

Wikileaks is only the beginning of things to come...right now we don't know much on how they do it, because nobody is smart enough to get to the sources of those leaks, and secure them.
Everyone is outclassed by their own vulnerability. Look @ Snowden and Assange where they live now, with restricted freedom, confined to another country to protect them from justice. They are considered as traitors to their countries and others. And yet they are also viewed as heroes from the eyes of many from the non-dictatorial establishment...the small regular people like the actors, comedians, musicians, farm workers, small investors, journalists, painters, poets, writers, construction workers, fishermen, forest rangers, etc.


Snowden and Assange cannot live in their own country, they made a choice to live under the protection of another country with different sets of laws.
They are still treated very well, eat well, sleep well, live well, but they don't move very far within their own confinement. Still, it's much better than being in jail or than being fried on the electric chair. It all depends on our social status from the position we hold in our security system, from which end we are; the spenders or the accumulators.
The people don't trust their leaders and the leaders don't care about the small people. There is a disconnection, a discontinuity, a breach of trust between the elected and the electors.
...Like if the elected thought that they were above the law, and that the real criminals are not the ones who exposed them but them making their own laws to protect their own interests.

My view is not important; only the well being of all men, women and children who want to live in peace and free.

Hacking has many disastrous disadvantages, but also some advantages. And it's only when the people all together will act towards peace, and enough is enough that we will start cleaning our homes. It starts right here, in our own backyards. It's up to each one to protect him/herself and their children against the invaders with our own security systems.
The security companies are just not up to the challenges. You can't rely on anyone to protect you, not in the year 2016, and not anywhere in the world. They'll find them wherever they hide. Hacking the hackers is the only logical step to get rid of them. You got to outsmart them, the people without special skills, the nerds/hackers.

• http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3862294/Hackers-used-internet-things-attack-Friday.html

Teach me then Yash; that's why I started this thread, to have open discussions on hacking education. Me I know nothing, only what I've read in the news and when in the movies they hire professional hackers to find other hackers, or criminal spies to help the FBI and the CIA. ...Or narcs to crumble the drug dealers.

How can hackers be well-known great contributors when they steal your password and identity, invading your freedom and privacy, spying on your cell phone calls and Internet shopping activities? Sure it's good to do that to the corrupted people, but not to the Amazon shoppers...us with our credit cards, and to the forums we enjoyed socializing and learning from sharing. This is very annoying when you cannot longer access your favorite sites and change all your passwords.

Go ahead, teach me some, give some great links. Tell me your thoughts about yesterday, Friday. Anything you think it's worth mentioning for the better, for our expanded knowledge, is most welcome.

opus112 said:

Possible but seems very unlikely. If all they want is copies of your music why would they go to the trouble of deleting them afterwards?

If you have no offline (and preferably off-site) backup of your audio files, then you're truly your own worst enemy.

Click to expand...

Hi Richard,

They said many things in the past that were impossible, and many of them happened, like walking on the moon.
How many people do you think have their credit card numbers stolen? For example, my next door neighbor has his stolen three times in the last twelve months!
I mentioned the music collection stored in your PC just as another possible example because we are music lovers here @ WBF. :b Lol

I agree with you; it's up to each one of us to be well aware, protected and take care of our own security.
Don't count on others for the things you can do yourself. Don't ask what your country can do for you but what you can do for your country. :b Lol, I like that...independence.

opus112 said:

You'd need to 'walk the talk' to get knowledgeable people to spend time teaching you Bob. Your words don't harmonize with your actions - to wit you say 'I know nothing' but then why are you such a prolific poster? For someone who 'knows nothing' you sure talk a lot! Realistically a person who 'knows nothing' (like Socrates) would listen and ask, listen and ask more, not spout.

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No no my posting activity has none to do with my hacking knowledge. Amir would be more like it, as he used to work for Microsoft, and his knowledge on computer and data electronics fall in line with this important topic, about Internet security.

We'll keep things simple; we'll discuss the topic and not the poster's habits. ...Words of harmony and all that jazz. :b

Yash said that you don't need special skills to hack. Ok, but not everyone has access to the CIA files, you need first to work for them.
So hackers would be people working for those companies they work for and having some access to their files.
Snowden's case is the perfect example; someone smart who everyone trust for their computer skills.
The fault is in the people who you trust and who broke that trust. Who's interest more important; the nation or the people?

They say Russia is hacking big time nowadays, and their hackers simply don't care because they don't leave their country so they cannot be arrested.
Russia is the perfect asylum for hackers like Snowden. If Snowden comes back to the USA you can be sure that he would be facing the laws of he land.
That's the way it works and it should work equally for anyone...poor and rich. But the laws are not all perfect, and money helps to weave around the laws.

Anyway, it's about hacking and the repercussions...good and bad it has overall on our system of the Internet and society in general.
We are @ the cusp of a new reality, Internet soap operas with more players doing their own reality shows. Everything, everyone matters now.
In our own country the people have a say, and they are represented by the majority of the says and yeas.
What happens in other countries is their affairs, and if goes beyond borders and crimes against humanity it's our business, all of us.
Some things are better kept secret between small groups when not impeding on other's businesses.
And there are other things that are more global/universal...like the Olympic Games spirit, and the respect for life.

If hacking exposes the human traffickers, drug dealers, criminals...robbers, corruption, bad deals, ...all stuff that kill and exploit and impoverish our people, our children @ the expense of others who benefit from all those crimes...directly and indirectly, then hacking is beneficial.
But if hackers are credit card robbers, theft identity perpetrators, privacy destroyers, reputation killers, in the interest of their own personal financial gain and satisfaction to the detriment of the people they hurt, then the laws of hacking might fall like a hammer on their fingers forever.

Crime is rare in some countries because the punishments are extremely severe. And those punishments should apply equally to the richest of the richest.
The laws in many countries seem to favor the higher class than the lower class. It should be the other way so that way the spread between the classes would be eliminated.
It's just that no one is smart enough to implement it the proper way. Reality simply doesn't work like that, I know it, you know it, we all know it.

So yeah, in a way I'm for the hackers hacking the most corrupted classes of people, the ones @ the top, because that's where the problems come from for the people @ the bottom.
Facebook, Tweeter, Instagram, ...is a TV network for all global information, except for North Korea people.
Speaking of North Korea... • http://www.reuters.com/news/picture/inside-north-korea?articleId=USRTR30IVQ ? they have their own secret floor (floor number 5) which is totally restricted to anyone except the state hackers. I don't remember the name of that building right now but I can easily find out if someone is interested.

In Prague recently they arrested a young Russian hacker, just google it.

I know nothing more than what's in the news. And the news aren't always accurate or beneficial for the true free information service.
That's where hackers can came in. Hacking the news media which is feeding the population false and bad information. Oh yes, it does exist even here in North America.
Hackers who expose the faked news and the corruption are good hackers. All in.

Let's come back to yesterday and that huge cyber attack across the entire country and beyond; I've read that it'll get worse, and no horse is safe. :b
I didn't say it, it's big, it's huge, and it has big implications. I didn't start a thread about small stuff; it's big stuff and it concerns much more people than just few.

So yes, to me it's a good subject of discussion. And I'm not alone. Hacking happens every single day, and it's getting universally wide spread and the most solid institutions, the foundations of our set of values is not only @ risk but it's been already exposed and much more exposition to come...
What are we going to do about it when we know that we are manipulated, extorted by the big machine from the financial system we created with the stock market?
Let's not do a blind test here with blind folders; did you see the movie 'The Wolf of Wall Street', 'The Big Short', 'Money Monster'? ...Just to name three recently.
Yeah I know, those are just movies. Lol, some movies are more realistic than the fictive realities of day to day regular life.

What if they hack Wall Street and NASDAQ? That would be interesting news; all the illegal underground deals and passing of information only to the fortunate/privileged ones.
Pensions gone for people who work hard all their life, savings gone, money transfers to the accounts of non-tax payers in other banks of the world...the Panama papers...

The banks are next, the bank managers, the real estate agents/realtors, mortgages, housing industry, financing companies, insurance claim companies, pharmaceutical companies, ...I've seen few great youtube videos between high shots CEOs versus congress. It's a great court of education, the justice system, the system of laws and loopholes, the inequalities, the outrageous price hikes of necessary lifesaving medicine, the long lines and delay of surgical operations, the delay to save lives, the disrespect of our war amputees and veterans, etc. It's a shame, and hacking will expose more of it ...

Yes, I'm here to learn and to share whatever I can contribute on all things hacking. But it has none to do with me or my posting; it's only one of my trillion life interests. ...That, among music and films/documentaries, our beautiful blue planet, its nature and wildlife, its fresh air, the space above...the galaxies, stars of the universe, the humanity and its eminent future.

opus112 said:

1.Who are 'they' in this sentence? 'Everything said is said by someone'.
2. It has happened to me, and ironically it was stolen from a company offering audiophile downloads. So I don't use them any more, lesson learned.

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1. That was in the general sense. 'They' can be anyone; newspapers/media, book writers, government, TV newscasts, radio announcers, movie reels, etc.
And the moon landing was just a quick example like that; who would imagine such a thing thousand years ago, or during the Ice Age. :b

2. Ah, you are your own witness of credit card theft fraud.

YashN said:

Don't twist my words into an obvious lie, please...

Click to expand...

Regarding Edward Snowden: "I don't think he has any special skills about that..."

Ok, I should have said: Yash said that he doesn't think that he has any special skills about that...
...Instead of "Yash said that you don't need special skills to hack."

Sorry, I did not mean to twist your words. I see what you mean.

YashN said:

He wouldn't know anything about it either seeing he thinks async USB resends data.

Click to expand...

Maybe you're right, I think you are right. But I also believe that he is more advanced than most of us on the subject...
The second part is totally irrelevant.

• http://www.whatsbestforum.com/showt...sword-Protection-Encryption&highlight=hacking
• http://www.whatsbestforum.com/showt...line-Identity-can-be-Hacked&highlight=hacking
• http://www.whatsbestforum.com/showt...the-planet-and-the-brain!!!&highlight=hacking
{In that third link, unfortunately the video has been terminated - I'll see if I can relocate it...}

EDIT: I couldn't locate that video from Amir's third link; I checked the time of approximately fifty minutes (Amir mentioned that), and I used some key words from google.
I stumbled into this one, and I watched part of it; this guy is not a professional hacker teaching others how to be good hackers (entrepreneurs and employees) but he has something else to offer to unhappy hackers...please forgive me to share something a little off topic. You don't have to watch it, but if you do it's like positive hacking...one of the examples:


Check the first few minutes, and see if you want to watch it in its entirety. I've read the first twelve seconds, then I've watched the first twelve minutes, then I jumped to the middle of it, then to the questions period near the end; all in all I've watched roughly half of it...I will watch the other half very soon.

By now I'm sure everyone is aware of the latest news: Yahoo discloses 'shocking' hack affecting 1 billion accounts

It has become so much the norm now that I don't have an opinion anymore, and we need a new system of privacy less boring. :b
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All the main companies (Apple, Microsoft, Yahoo, Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, Google, Amazon, Instagram, ...) have been hacked. It is epidemic.
We have been asked everywhere to change our passwords and credit card numbers. Is this part of global warming!!!

Edward Snowden, Wikileaks (Julian Assange), ...they told us that we all have been whacked (hacked) by the world's hackers, including our own very trusted/elected leaders.
Facebook has hired a team of anti-fake news propagandists. ...Three companies! Ok, that's a good first step because it's getting out of hand.
CNN is also a big guilty news media on fake news; they should also hire an anti-fake news team.

And, I didn't know that Poutine himself was a hacker! http://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/world...ed-in-us-hacking/ar-AAlCwFV?OCID=ansmsnnews11
Is this also fake news from my own country (MSN Canadian news media)?!?!?! If you spread fake news you could face jail time. If you hack you could face jail time. If you breach security and privacy you could face jail time. Who are the young hackers, where do they come from, why is the internet so vulnerable, why are the spy agencies hacked by their own hackers, why are the Russians allowed to vote (hack) in other countries' elections, why is it permissible to cross the red line, why aren't they hiring anti-hackers teams???

Tomorrow they're going to hack Santa Claus in the North Pole and he won't be able to distribute all the kid's Christmas presents!

Almost everyday another company, institution, government agency, mailing company, banking monopoly, stock market, private communication system, ... get hacked.
You want to talk to your Mom, sister, daughter, ... in all family privacy I bet someone is listening and recording the conversations and emails and Skype and Facetime and selfies.
...On your PCs, your cell phones, the cameras from your computers, laptops, androids, iPhones, tablets, ... and from the integrated microphones too.
Our phone lines are probably tapped and spies are spying on everyone they want to.

One country, Canada, USA, UK, Italy, Greece, Germany, France, ...is having an election and people from Russia, or China, or Syria, or North Korea, or Japan, or ..., is voting for us!
Hacking wouldn't exist without communication technologies, if we were using our old reliable system of paper and pens. Look @ Detroit!
? http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/201...covers-massive-voter-fraud-detroit-precincts/

What is best to do? Here are couple solutions:
1. Hire police officers to investigate irregularities.
2. Implement new laws to deter hackers and fake news starters.
3. Stiff fines and jail sentences.
4. United Nations ? Let them have a vote and implement stiff sanctions to law breakers and against the perpetrators of crimes against humanity, including hacking and fake news.

Sure, you might just laugh @ it all, but it's no laughable matter when the world is going berserk and people are losing their jobs, their homes, and their lives.
Hacking is a serious crime, hacking kills.

They should start all over, and have a new election. But this time around by making sure the Russian hackers stay out of it. Who knows...the Green Party might have a chance?
Seriously though; how can they let them hacked our own system of democracy? How is this feasible? Who signed for this? Who has a photocopy of that signature as concrete evidence?

Earlier I was talking with an old friend, and he said to me that someone was going to speak @ 2:00 PM on national TV. But I've told him that I don't have TV cable, and all I got with my rabbit antennae is Peter Popoff

Everyday when I turn my computer on I say Hello to my front camera. ...To whoever is watching and listening.