Anonymous India hacks IIPM and 16 other URLs

Anonymous India, in a recent protest against the Department of Telecommunications’ (DoT) blockade of 78 URLs that criticised a private MBA institution, hacked and brought down IIPM’s (Indian Institute of Planning and Management) website on Saturday. The blockade had been directed by a Gwalior Bench of the Madhya Pradesh High Court on Februray 14, 2013. News of the hack attack has been trending across Twitter and has seen a barrage of comments from the Twitterrati.

Reports have it that the hacker group kept the IIPM’s URL, and 16 other links carrying content from IIPM, down and out for 9 hours. The online community was in an uproar over the blockade as it seemed to indicate how a private body made unjust use of the Indian judiciary to clean its reputation online.

The blockade came as a shock to 73 of the 78 URL owners which were taken down under the court’s directive without prior intimation to the owners. Medianama, the first website to post the news, was in fact one of the websites that belongs to the list of blocked URLs, which also includes that of University Grants Commission (UGC). Nikhil Pahwa of Medianama had posted the “order”, a PDF document issued by DoT, owing to which the online media fraternity was informed about the blockade. It also seems like a mockery of India’s education system whereby UGC, a deemed government education set up, has been gagged by a local judiciary body.

Hacked!

UGC’s portal carried a notice released in July 2012 which mentioned that “IIPM is not a university within the meaning of section 2(f) of the UGC Act, 1956”. Reports further add that in reaction to this notice, IIPM Founder, Arindham Chaudhari, stated that he was proud of the fact that IIPM was not affiliated to a corrupt institution like that of UGC and that he is glad that malicious content on IIPM is off the web.

Chaudhari also made a comment on Firstpost saying, “I suspect that UGC — at the behest of some of our petty competitors with dirty past records of filth and cheating, and public notices against them — had been deliberately spreading misleading information about IIPM to hurt its business interests and had even gone to the extent of falsely calling IIPM a fake university.”

Perhaps, the self-proclaimed marketing guru is glad that his private institution has come into the limelight without many efforts from his end. The controversy has definitely given mileage to Chaudhari’s crusade against those who have been accusing IIPM for making a business out of middle class MBA aspirants.

Here are a couple of tweets posted over the controversy:
Anonymous India (@OpIndia_revenge)- "#TangoDown iipm.in #IIPMScam. Reason: Got court order to block URLs criticizing them including the UGC (Govt Body) notice"

Gursimran Khamba (@gkhamba) - "If Arindam was as good at marketing as he says he is he would've used this controversy to say 'IIPM - No 1 in internet exposure'".

Sumit Kumar (@kumar_sumit) - "@opindia_revenge:On a lighter side #IIPM has done one thing which none of us could do .. they got a govt url blocked .. :) #UGC #GOI"

BlackBerry Z10 SA launch dates revealed

Sources confirm retail date of the BlackBerry Z10; operators launch pre-registration pages

Various media liasons and industry sources have revealed that the BlackBerry Z10 should be available from Vodacom, Cell C, and 8ta from 1 March 2013, with Vodacom offering the device as soon as 24 February 2013.
8ta confirmed today (18 February 2013) that it is on track to launch BlackBerry 10 offers to the public “as of 1 March 2013.”
“The details of the offers will be announced in due course,” 8ta said.
Vodacom and Cell C said that they could not disclose any information about their BlackBerry 10 launch plans as yet, with Vodacom adding that it would issue a press release with launch dates and pricing details before the end of the week.
However, industry sources have revealed that Vodacom should receive stock of the BlackBerry Z10 on 22 February 2013, with retail availability expected soon thereafter.

BlackBerry Z10 press shot

Information from Cellucity, an independent Vodacom dealer, appears to corroborate this as it revealed that it expects to be able to sell the Z10 as soon as 24 February 2013.
There are also rumours in industry that Cell C will be selling the BlackBerry Z10 from 1 March 2013.
8ta and MTN both have pre-registration webpages online where subscribers can reserve their device, while Dion Wired and Cellucity offer reservation services for Vodacom.
Off-contract pre-orders are also available to South African consumers online, with Incredible Connection offering the BlackBerry Z10, along with a flip cover, for R7,000.
Update: MTN has provided the following comment from Ryan Gould, general manager – brand and communication at MTN SA: “MTN will be ranging the Blackberry Z10 device, we expect it to be available from the 1st of March 2013. MTN will make further announcements with regards to pricing in due course.”

Apple iOS 6.1 Lockscreen Bug Exposes iPhones To Hacking [VIDEO]

Employing a passcode lock on your Apple iPhone 4, 4S or 5 used to be all you needed to do to keep potential thieves from accessing your contacts and photos and making calls using your minutes.

But a new instructional video posted to YouTube on Valentine's Day by The Verge demonstrates that a glitch of some kind in iOS 6.1 has left phones that run the operating system vulnerable to being broken into to allow crafty hackers take advantage of a range of their features.
The video, which we have not independently verified due to the dangers that following its instructions could pose to any iPhone, shows a step-by-step breakdown of exactly how to hack a locked iPhone running the iOS 6.1 operating system.

We highly recommend not trying this on your or any other phone, as it is unknown how it could affect the function of your iPhone, but below is a summary of the process for techies out there who just want to know how it works.
The first step is to click the "Emergency Call" button on the "Enter Passcode" lockscreen. Then hold down the power button as if you are trying to turn the phone off, and when it prompts you to slide to power down the phone, instead hit "Cancel."
Then dial an emergency number (the number used in the video is the 112 emergency call phone number used in the European Union, but 911 would presumably do the trick for American readers) and hit the call button, but immediately cancel the call.
Now, hit the power button once to put the phone into standby, then press it again to show the home screen once again. Swipe as usual to get to the homescreen, which will be in "Emergency Call" mode.
Then hold down the power button for three to four seconds, and while still holding the power button down, press the "Emergency Call" button. Let go of the power button, then immediately hit the home button in order to avoid powering down your iPhone.
This will take you to the phone's contacts, from which you can not only see all the details of the contacts within the phone, but also call them and even access the phone's photographs by attempting to add an image to accompany any of the contacts.
None of the other features of the phone such as email, apps or text messaging seem to be accessible once it's been hacked, but Apple will still likely need to issue a patch in order to address the issue.
And the Huffington Post heard Thursday from a company spokesperson who offered the following statement in response to this newly revealed iOS 6.1 security glitch:
"Apple takes user security very seriously. We are aware of this issue, and will deliver a fix in a future software update.”
Press play below to check out The Verge's video explainer describing the iOS 6.1 lockscreen workaround:
 

How To do "Man in Middle" Attack using Ettercap

"Man in Middle" Attack is a form of active eavesdropping in which the attacker makes independent connections with the victims and relays messages between them, making them believe that they are talking directly to each other over a private connection when in fact the entire conversation is controlled by the attacker. The attacker must be able to intercept all messages going between the two victims and inject new and modified messages to one or both of them, which is straightforward in many circumstances (for example, an attacker within reception range of an unencrypted Wi-Fi wireless access point, can insert himself as a man-in-the-middle). example in form of picture is shown below.

 

Ettercap is a suite for man in the middle attacks on LAN. It features sniffing of live connections, content filtering on the fly and many other interesting tricks. It supports active and passive dissection of many protocols (even ciphered ones) and includes many feature for network and host analysis.

Installation: OpenSuSe 11.1 user can use "1-click" installer to install Ettercap - Here

Running Ettercap:You need to select a user interface (no default) using -T for Text only, -C for the Ncurses based GUI, or -G for the nice GTK2 interface (e.g) - # ettercap -G

Open Ettercap in graphical mode: # ettercap -G

Select the sniff mode: Sniff → Unified sniffing and Scan for host inside your subnet Hosts → Scan for hosts

See the MAC and  IP addresses of the hosts inside your subnet: Hosts → Hosts List, from this list Select the machines to poison

We chose to ARP poison only the windows machine 192.168.1.2 and the router 192.168.1.1.
Highlight the line containing 192.168.1.1 and click on the "target 1" button.
Highlight the line containing 192.168.1.2 and click on the "target 2" button.

Start the ARP poisoning: Mitm → Arp poisoning and start the sniffer to see the activities

ARP TRAFFIC before the poisoning:
As you can see that the router and the Windows machine send an ARP broadcast to find the MAC address of the other.

No 1 2 3 4

Source 11:22:33:44:55:66 11:22:33:44:11:11 11:22:33:44:11:11 11:22:33:44:55:66

Destination 11:22:33:44:11:11 11:22:33:44:55:66 11:22:33:44:55:66 11:22:33:44:11:11

Prot ARP ARP ARP ARP

Info who has 192.168.1.1? Tell 192.168.1.2 192.168.1.1 is at 11:22:33:44:11:11 who has 192.168.1.2? Tell 192.168.1.1 192.168.1.2 is at 11:22:33:44:55:66

ARP TRAFFIC after the poisoning
The router ARP broadcast request is answered by the Windows machine similarly than in the previous capture.

The difference between the two steps comes from the fact that there is no request coming from Windows (192.168.1.2) to find the MAC address associated to the router (192.168.1.1) because the poisoner continuously sends ARP packets telling the Windows machine that 192.168.1.1 is associated to his own MAC address (11:22:33:44:99:99) instead of the router MAC address (11:22:33:44:11:11).

No 1 2 3 4

Source 11:22:33:44:11:11 11:22:33:44:55:66 11:22:33:44:99:99 11:22:33:44:99:99

Destination 11:22:33:44:55:66 11:22:33:44:11:11 11:22:33:44:55:66 11:22:33:44:55:66

Prot ARP ARP ARP ARP

Info who has 192.168.1.2? Tell 192.168.1.1 192.168.1.2 is at 11:22:33:44:55:66 192.168.1.1 is at 11:22:33:44:99:99 192.168.1.1 is at 11:22:33:44:99:99

BlackBerry 10: shops deny claims by Thorsten Heins that Z10 phones are selling out

Shops have denied claims by BlackBerry boss Thorsten Heins that some the company’s new Z10 smartphones have sold out.

Thorsten Heins shows off the new BlackBerry Z10 (left) and the Q10. Photo: Getty

By Richard Holt

In an interview this week, Mr Heins hailed the success of his company’s new phones, saying that sales in the UK were “beyond expectations”.

Talking about the Z10 - one of two new BlackBerry handsets unveiled last week - he added: “White is sold out already. The black is hard to stock up again. It’s very encouraging.”

His comments generated a great deal of positive press coverage about sales of the new products, seen as a make-or-break bid to regain some of the ground lost out to Apple’s iPhone and Google’s Android.

Staff at Phones 4U, the exclusive UK supplier of the white Z10, said that they have not sold out of the handsets.

When the website Mobile News contacted the retailer’s customer services and two of its retail stores, all of them said the white handset was still in stock.

One store in Leeds and one in Manchester said they had handsets available for immediate purchase and collection, with one saying they had “loads left”.
Stores in London contacted by the Daily Telegraph said they had “plenty left”.
My Heins made the comments in an interview with the Associated Press in the US, where the phones are due to be released in mid-March.
The comments will lead to accusations that Mr Heins is trying to talk up sales of the handsets.
BlackBerry have so far failed to reply to requests for a comment.
Following last week’s launch, analysts were generally cautiously optimistic about the announcement of two new handsets, the Z10 and the Q10, as well as the new BB10 operating system.
The new phones were considered to be a large, if belated, step forward for BlackBerry, the company formerly known as Research in Motion. Whether it is a big enough step forward to regain the huge amount of market share lost to BlackBerry's competitors is a much more difficult question to answer.