[Oak]

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The edition you are currently reading is the 176th full edition. To read any older editions of HF News, please go here.

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Multiple Account Breaches
Hip, hip, hooray! Happy New Year. HackForums has kicked off the New Year with a not-so-great beginning. Witza, Omniscient's payment processor for upgrades was breached, Omniscient's HF and Minecraft accounts being compromised because of password resets, and last but not least the Rep-Fuck and bans on a few members. Everything has been dealt with accordingly and no information was stolen at all. The hacker(s) that did this were/was not able to access the admin control panel as well as the staff section. The hackers also tampered with the MOTM contest. They gave the user Ninetales. over 100 votes, which made things unfair. Soon enough, a new thread was made and all votes back to zero. You can read more about the breach here and you can check out the new MOTM thread here. So far everything is back to normal and Omniscient left a little "easter egg", so to speak on Witza.

New Rule in the eBook Bazaar Forum
Ponzi Schemes by Omniscient is currently the newest thread in the Ebook Bazaar forum. It states, "If your ebook is about making money by selling an ebook to make money then you will get a closed account for participating in a Ponzi scheme. I suggest everyone very quickly review the ebook you're selling right now and junk it because this policy is retroactive and any active threads I find will be subject to this policy." EBooks must be edited accordingly if they contain anything revolving this new rule. There is currently no information on if you'll be banned, have your account closed, or what warning type you receive. Violating the rule and not editing your eBook accordingly will be done at your discretion.

New Cryptography and Encryption Marketplace Subforum
A new subforum in the Premium Sellers Section in the marketplace has recently been created. All market-style threads about cryptography and encryption services or software have been moved here. As of now, there is 502 threads and over 25,000 posts. No official thread was posted, so the section might have been created to clean up the Cryptography, Encryption, and Decryption section from threads that belong in the marketplace section. All threads regarding the sales of this topic should be posted here.

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User News

• Tiszy hit 2,000 reputation points. Gross.
  
• ℓιикℓαи¢є hit 1,000 reputation points. Yay.
  

Repfucks

• Stamp was repfucked.
  
• Hercules”” was repfucked.
  
• Zanelot was repfucked for harassing members.
  
• Ninetales. was repfucked.
  
• Orgy and Diabolic were repfucked when Omniscient's account was compromised.
  
• FedEx was repfucked.
  
• Epsilon‎ was repfucked.
  

Active Bans*

• ᴀpex was banned with the reason: "SCAMMER BE GONE!"
  
• Fictional was banned with the reason: "You must be at least 13 to be a member here."
  
• Stamp was banned with the reason: "End of the line for you. Bye."
  
• Bull™ was banned for account sharing.
  
• Baghead … was banned for impersonating other members.
  
• Aѕtro was banned for not fulfilling their contest.
  
• Zanelot was banned for harassing members.
  
• .Pastebin was banned for creating multiple accounts.
  
• Panik was banned for posting members' personal information.
  

Expired Bans*

• Max' was banned.
  

Vacations

• • eiqhtworks was vacation banned.
    
  • Teavana was vacation banned.
    
  • Steven Paul was vacation banned.
    

Closures

• Puggelicious had their account closed.
  
• FedEx had their account closed.
  

Awards

• Froggy received the Sticky Man award for this thread.
  
• Ninetales. received the Sticky Man award for this thread.
  
• Teh Afro received the Sticky Man award for this thread.
  
• Kill Joy donated for Master Donator and received the Gamer award along with the donation.
  
• Orgy received two Asswipe awards.
  
• Polymath 1.0 won MOTM December 2013.
  
• Amandaa donated for the Master Donator award.
  
• Christy and Diabolic both received the Diamond award.
  

Group Leadership Changes

• Control Panel is now a leader of Innovation.
  
• I Am JT is now a leader of Innovation.
  

* - As of scheduled release date for the HF News edition.

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Happy New Year Breach! by Omniscient - A thread explaining the details of the breach.

| Ultimate GTA V Thread | Everything You Need To Know | by Teh Afro - The ultimate guide to GTA V.

3 Steps On How To Secure Your TeamViewer by -Nas - A quick guide on how to be safe while using TeamViewer.

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Interview - Ink Heart
(Click to View)Clique: Welcome to the this weeks edition of the News. We're joined with Ink Heart this week. What's up man?
Ink Heart: nothing much, just got back from my trip.

Clique: Where'd you go? Also: anyone you'd like to give a shoutout to before we begin?
Ink Heart: I was lost in the congo jungle for about 4 weeks, and yeah ill give a shutout to baghead, invisuse, majha, and of course the high chief peter maivia.

Clique: Sounds pretty crazy to me, to be honest. Hi to them! What did you end up doing for New Years?
Ink Heart: I spent my New Years searching for water and building a tent of straw.

Clique: Came up with a resolution for the new year? "Don't get lost in jungles" -- maybe?
Ink Heart: I plan on becoming a slum lord some time this year. I want to own my own property and protect it with a moat.

Clique: Sounds like a fine plan. On the real though, I see that you're into graphics. Vectoring to be specific. What got you into that?
Ink Heart: I'v always enjoyed design since I was a kid, it's the only hobby i have ever had besides my tap dancing years. This forum is what got me into making my own graphics though, many of the members here inspired me to create my own style, and art.

Clique: Tap dancing? Nice. So tell us about yourself. The day in the life of Ink Heart. What do you do besides trekking in the jungle?
Ink Heart: Well I masturbate a lot, go to the gym, listen to Howard Stern, do some graphics, but mostly I just masturbate a lot.

Clique: True. So, what keeps you hooked on the site? Why'd you join?
Ink Heart: Nothing keeps me hooked on the site, I come and go, but when i come back it's for the graphics. I originally joined for the SRPP section I wanted to get insight on others thoughts and beliefs, but then i realized there thoughts don't matter and I started drawing shit.

Clique: So, what do you even use to draw? On paper or a computer. A pencil or a tablet?
Ink Heart: I start everything on paper as a sketch, then i take a picture of the sketch and put it on my computer, then I put it in adobe illustrator and then i vector it. it's a pretty boring process, thats why i masturbate so much.

Clique: Any tips that you can give to newbies on vectoring? Any goals that you'd like to accomplish on the site?
Ink Heart: Yeah, i would suggest they Stick with it, vectoring can be very Hard, but as Long as they keep there Head Stimulated they should Cum along nicely. I also suggest relieving your tension as often as possible.

As far as goals on the site goes my only goal would be to take omni's place, I feel I could run this place better. I would make it into a dictatorship and force the members to give me $20 a month each to avoid being rep fucked and banned, also every new member would have to tell me there penis size.

Clique: Best of luck. Anything you'd like to say before we're done?
Ink Heart: Yeah, I wanted to mention a few things you didnt have time to ask, first I am 1 inch showing 4 inches fully erect. Second my favorite movie is The Cat Creeps by Rupert Julian which i cried during. Third I would like to mention that sometimes I feel like a women trapped in a mans body, my life goal is to be seen as the women i believe I am. Also I am a big fan of Batman.


Interview - Basics. (Click to View)
Clark: Welcome to this weeks edition of the HF News. Today I'm joined with the user Basics. Thanks for joining us today Basics; Do you have any shootouts you'd like to make before we proceed?
Basics. Thank you. I'd like to shout out to two members who were kind enough to upgrade me to L33t and Ub3r in the past few years. I'd also like to shout out to everyone on HF for making my journey worthwhile and teaching me a lot of valuable information along the way. Thanks!

Clark: Hell of a shoutout, one of the best I've heard. So why don't you tell us about how your discovered Hack Forums?
Basics. Haha thanks. Well, a friend sent me a link to a website which distributed a RAT (a very old one too.) I didn't even know how to download it as it required a password I couldn't find (which was actually right there on top of the page -.-) Intrigued, I Googled "hacking forums" and HackForums was the first on the list. I'm really glad it was!

Clark: So have you learned more about hacking since you've registered?
Basics. Definitely. HackForums has given me a new perspective about computers, how they work and how they can be exploited. I treasure the science behind it too, simply amazing.

Clark: Do you have any plans for your future here at Hack Forums? Any releases or upcoming projects?
Basics. One of my plans is to reap all the information I can from HF. I have not released anything in relation though. I'm going to try make 2014 a productive year so one day I can!

Clark: So tell us more about some of your interests. Any of which relate to Hack Forums?
Basics. I really enjoy listening to music for my pleasure. I also enjoy reading up on tutorials and helping members to the best of my ability. I smoke Marijuana too but how sick are we of posts regarding Marijuana right? This track sounds really dope when smoking to it though!

Clark: It's alright I suppose. What's your favourite genre of music?
Basics. Well, Trap at the moment. But I'll listen to anything that has a catchy beat, my tastes aren't limited. There's always room for more!

Clark: Cool, every genre has something awesome to offer. So what would you like to see done differently on Hack Forums?
Basics. I have no problem with the way Omniscient or his team maintain HF to be honest. This is a business after all. However, I wish new members would read the help documents more often. I would also like regular members to stop complaining about receiving negative reputation and on top of that, lableing it "abuse". Other than that I have no problem with HF. Everything is set up to my liking so far!

Clark: I think we'd all like newer members to review the Help Doc's more, sadly majority of them don't know where to find them, let alone take the time to read them. Which theme are you currently using? Do you have a favourite?
Basics. Still using the Old School theme, which is my favorite. Browsing HF is not the same with other themes imho, lol.

Clark: Ah you're missing out man, Modern Blue is unreal. So have you have been apart of any groups on HF? If so which one?
Basics. But it's too.. Modern Sad. Oh, this was quite some time back. I was a member of Red Lions, Eminence, Writ3rs (Wiki) and Techsperts (or whatever the name was.) I didn't feel like I was contributing enough (time sucks) so I decided to leave to avoid becoming a liability to the group. I co-led Eminence with WiFi for a while before I decided to leave that group too. Seems to have vanished actually.

Clark: Good on you, it's always better to leave a group than to stay and not partake in it. Anyway, thanks for joining us today! If you have any last statements you'd end with, go for it!
Basics. Positive thinking will always lead to positive results. Never dwell in negativity no matter how tough your situation is! Thanks for the interview, Clark. Thanks for great stay, HF!

[Oak]

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Child's Play Raises $7.6m In 2013
The gaming charity Child's Play, has raised more than $7.6 million in 2013. The charity provides toys and games to children in over 70 hospitals worldwide. "The bulk of our donations don’t come in the form of huge grants: the millions are made up of the $10, $20, $50 donations," wrote program coordinator Jamie Dillon on the Child's Play site. "They come from game marathons, golf tournaments, eBay auctions, and bake sales. They come from the incredible community that makes the tag line 'Gamers give back' an understatement. The community coming together for 10 years has now resulted in $25,196,670. We are humbled, proud, and overwhelmed with gratitude. Thank you for making 2013 our best year yet."

Microsoft on Xbox One
Major Nelson has stated that Microsoft is listening to the community every day to improve the new system. "When we look back and look at what we've done, we want to continue to adapt the system to what gamers want," Hryb told Canada.com. "The team that works on Xbox are gamers themselves. We want to build the system that we use and that we know gamers would enjoy using." "We're going to continue to refine the system and make it what the Xbox fans are expecting and what they want," he said. "We're listening to the feedback every single day. I've already seen some changes in the operating system internally with what we're building." If you have any suggestions for the new console, it's best to post them on the official Xbox forums or on Reddit.

Video of the Week
If you haven't heard already, Minecraft has launched on the PS3. Here is the launch trailer for the latest Minecraft platform.

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Chicken Jockeys to Cause Major Lag Issues
As many might know, the introduction of the new mob-- Chicken Jockeys-- was a definitely cool and unexpected release. It's the combination of a baby zombie and a chicken, making a cool little character that everyone is aspiring to capture. What people didn't know, though, is that they cause a very big issue for lag. Once spawned (whether the baby zombie despawns on top of the chicken or not), the chicken will lay eggs for other zombies to pick up. If a zombie picks up an item, it will become impossible for it to despawn-- causing a large amount of loaded entities. That being said, make sure to light up all of your caves.

Mindcrack Allowing Reminiscence
With their release of the Play Mindcrack server, the Mindcrackers themselves have decided to allow players to view the maps of Mindcrack's previous seasons. Not only may it be nostalgic for some of the people that played on the server at the time, but it's too quite nostalgic for the viewers. Players are able to roam the maps in their entirety and furthermore see what some of their favorite YouTubers have done years and years ago.

HackerCraft News
Due to an issue regarding server hosting (more specifically found in this thread), the world has been reset. As of right now, the only thing that's been affected is, well, everything except /chest, EM balance, and enderchests; that being said, anything built in the previous world is gone. Omniscient had advised to go easy on building as of right now until everything is under control.

Featured Server of the Week: PlayMindcrack
Coming from the Mindcrackers themselves, a server has finally been made for all of their fans to play on with them. Though it isn't quite like the notorious vanilla server they maintain and broadcast, PlayMindcrack features plenty of mini-games such as Barnyard Blitz, Dwarves vs Zombies, and Survival Games in addition to the allowance of viewing previous seasons' maps. If any of that sounds interesting to you, check out the server today at us.playmindcrack.com!

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233 Rescued off the Coast of Sicily
The Italian Navy has rescued people from a boat that was in the rough seas; it turns out the boat was overcrowded with people from various different places, such as Pakistan, Eritrea, Nigeria, Somalia, Zambia and Mali. Reports have been said that many different people try to come to Italy looking for a new life, but there are always problems when doing that. Some boats do not have life vests, such as this one, and many people die from rough seas and various other things. Sadly, most people are sent back to where they came from unless they are eligible for asylum, have family somewhere in Italy, or have a job somewhere in Europe.

Car Bomb Explodes in Beirut
A bombing in Beirut happened on Thursday, January 2nd, in the neighborhoods of Hezbollah, Beirut. Shockingly enough, there was a bombing one week before in Beirut as well. There were fewer deaths and injuries due to this bombing than the first. Sadly, four people were killed and 77 were injured during the incident. No suspects have been found yet and no one has taken responsibility for the tragic accident. The explosion was said to be felt by neighborhoods close to Hezbollah. Buildings were destroyed, and car fumes and smoke filled the air. Reports stated that one of the victims killed was Mohamad Chatah, a former Lebanese minister and ambassador to the United States. Let's hope that this doesn't happen for a third time.

Bangladesh Creates Largest Human Flag
Last year Pakistan had set a world record for the world's largest human flag. This year, on December 16th, Bangladesh has taken away the title from Pakistan and is currently the title holder. 27,117 participated in this event which lasted five minutes. (Guinness World Records rules.) Many people celebrated because this is one of the first time that Bangladesh has set a record after gaining independence from Pakistan. The date also celebrates the 42nd anniversary of Bangladesh's independence from Pakistan, proving even more significant for Bangladeshi citizens.

Crystal Meth Raid
More than 3,000 officers raided a village in Guangdong, China this past week. Another raid which happened earlier had 109 raids in a village bigger than the one that happened in Guangdong. During the raid, dozens were arrested and the cops found three tons of crystal meth. Not only did they find drugs, but they found weapons such as guns, knives, and grenades. Pictures were taken of boxes, bins, and huge rooms filled with the meth stored and ready to sell. Around 77 of the drug factories were shutdown during this raid. If you were to calculate the money the dealers would have earned in US currency, they would have made around $232 million. Since the early 90's there hasn't been too much of the drug game going around in the area. It was a perfect spot to make money and have a business since there was no competition.

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Google Acquires Bitspin
Google recently acquired app company Bitspin, who is well known for their alarm app, Timely. The Bitspin team stated in a news announcement that nothing will happen to Timely, and that they will continue to build new products. The bigger news coming out of this, however, is that their premium version of the Timely app is now free.

Evernote CEO Pledges To Focus On Core Features And Fix Bugs
Evernote may be on its way back. After a tirade posted by Jason Kincaid was noticed by Evernote's CEO, and has promised to focus more on bug fixes and core features. This comes after finding out that when you get support from Evernote, all your notes are saved in plain text log files, and that could be a problem. The CEO says updates will be rolling out to fix bugs over the next few weeks.

HTC Posted Second Consecutive Operating Loss
HTC just posted an operating loss of $52 million, but ended up securing a small net profit of $10.3 million by selling its remaining shares of Beats. This marks the ninth consecutive quarterly drop in sales, despite their addition of the HTC One Max to their lineup. The company is also dealing with general loss of interest in their phones, as well as sales bans and patent setbacks. This means their next release is crucial.

Belkin Announces A Remote Controlled Slow Cooker
Around this time last year, Belkin had partnered up with Jarden, who happens to be the company behind the Crock-Pot, among other things. At that time, they promised we would see kitche appliances that have Belkin's WeMo automation built it. At CES, Belkin finally delivered and just announced the Crock-Pot WeMo Slow Cooker. This device is controlled with the WeMo app and turn it on and off, adjust the temperature or change the time settings. The device is going to ship this spring for about $100, with products such as a coffee maker, air purifier and space heater to follow later on this year.

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Rick Ross suing LMFAO
LMFAO is currently being sued for copyright infringement for one of their songs, "Party Rock Anthem". Ross states that they stole lyrics off of his song, "Everday I'm hustlin'". In the song by LMFAO, they say the following: "Everyday I’m shufflin'" which subsequently sounds the same as "Everyday I'm hustlin'". According to Mr. Ross, he is the one who gave the word fame. Surprisingly enough, they could win a substantial amount of money if they win this case considering the amount of money LMFAO earned from this track, (around 7.5 million copies sold,) as well as their t-shirts and other clothes from their clothing line. Why this suddenly came up, nobody knows; but it could be a huge downfall for LMFAO.

Coinye West: New Crytocurreny
A new cryptocurrency named after rapper Kanye West will be released sometime around January 11th. New cryptocurrencies have been popping up all throughout HF, such as Dogecoin, Omnicoin and even Catcoin. That being said, HF might be seeing a new type of coin being exchanged by members in our marketplace. It has been stated that the creators (who wish to be anonymous at the time being) of this cryptocurrency are not affiliated with Mr. West at all. When the time comes, the creators hope that he appreciates a coin named after him, possibly name drop it, and be able to use it for purchasing various different items, such as tickets. Who knows. This might become the next big thing.

Music Sales of 2013 Decreased
For the first time in iTunes history, music sales have decreased. Due to more and more software that allows you to pirate music, as well as competing companies, iTunes dropped their digital track sales by 5.7%. They went from having 1.34 copies (2012) to 1.26 billion (2013) being sold. Their album sales have dropped 0.1% to 117.6 million. 2012's total was 117.7 million. Looking at different genres, many artists made more profit than others, but that is an obvious statement. The top selling track of all time in 2013 was "Blurred Lines" by the artist Robin Thicke. There are no current signs on sales dropping as of now. When it came to the stocks and market share, UMG (Universal Music Group) came out on top with 38.9% in albums sold. While there was still a drop in album purchases, iTunes was still on top compared to stores such as Walmart or Best Buy.

Music Video of the Week
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This is basically my own little corner to type up my thoughts and some standpoints on different topics.

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Ya know, that little entrance sentence has been there for a long time. I've never even thought about changing it.
It's been there since the first Sir's Second, and I now intend for it to be there until the last.
Amazing how things can stare you in the face, and leave you so oblivious.

[Oak]

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"What are you most looking forward to in 2014?"

"I'm honestly happy it's 2014. New year, new resolutions, and
everyone's getting older. I'm personally looking forward to the
new technology. I haven't done a bunch of research, but I'm
hoping something that finally makes me say "woah". Other than
that, I'm hoping for a great school year. I'm not the best student
so I'm hoping for the best when it comes to finals or something
even scarier.. Thinking about college. I have a long time to think
about that, but it's going to be a game changer when it's time
to leave. Oh, and one last thing: I HOPE THAT MILEY CYRUS
BECOMES SANE AGAIN."
-Yuzuha

"2014, as every games should know, is going to
be a massive year for video games. Next gen consoles have been
released, and devs are finally able to begin work on new games.
To answer your question, I am most excited for video games to
come in 2014. A few of them being Watch Dogs, Titanfall, and
Destiny. I also tried to inject an advertisement
for my thread. Woo."
-Haste.

"In 2014 I'm looking forward to finishing this academic year
in September and starting a new job shortly there after, This
year should be a good year for me as if all goes to plan this
should be the year that I can move out of my parents house
and start to take responsibility for myself. Happy new year to
everyone, Hope everyone had a good time and I hope everyone
can reach the goals they've set for themselves this year."
-Winner

"I'm a little unsure, I'd have to go with world
events.. I enjoy reading up on them and with the tension
between America and North Korea, will be interesting to see
the outcome. I'd also love to see how far Hack Forums can
go in another year, the only way is up as they say."
-Diabolic

The topic for next week is "How do you feel about the little hacking fiasco?"

To send in your entries for the next edition, PM Sir.

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HF News Team

• Publisher & Head Journalist
  • Sir
• Journalists
  • Sir
    • Opinions
      
    • Sir's Second
      
    • Comics
  • awhty
    • User News
  • MarkMare
    • Gaming News
  • Harlem
    • Tech News
  • Lovol
    • Minecraft News
  • Yuzuha
    • World News
      
    • Music News
      
    • Headlines

• Interviewers
  • Clique
    
  • Clark
    
  • Saturday
    
• Graphical Editors
  • Unreputed
    
  • Poseidon
    
• Reporter
  • Yellows & awhty
    
• Proofreader
  • D3xus
    

[Baghead]

Yeaaah first post
Nice edition, enjoyed the interviews. Ink's was quite the read.

[EziNet]

Will read now. Thank you Sir. 🙂

[Diabolic]

Not a bad read. I found it a lot more interesting than the New Year's Edition. Nice work, Writ3rs.

[Mung]

I love the new graphic design.
Thanks for this addition Sir, very appreciated. EDIT: Plus all of the others in the Writ3rs team headquarters.

This news leads me to wonder why and how Omni's account was compromised.

[xhflhkeuhwguu34]

Wow, got in on the first page. Reading it now 👍

[RDCA]

The banners look kind of odd lol. So tight and close together, but I like it. Either way good edition as per usual.

[muzzy.]

Always a nice read. Thanks team 🤝

[Pharaohs]

Another good job on the news and a good read.
Good job writ3rs

[Teh Afro]

Thank you for featuring my GTA thread. 🤗 Great edition as per.

[NOTHING MATTERS]

Another excellent edition of HF news. This time I actually contributed though, and sent in my opinion :3

[Vegas]

I'm liking the Evernote bit, and I'm glad Timely won't be seeing any significant changes.
That's fucking brilliant about Party Rock Anthem, I can't wait to see how that plays out.

[1MPERATOR]

Took some time to read, but was worth it!
thanks for this edition.