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HF News // Edition 233

     

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The edition you are currently reading is the 233rd edition of HF News. To read any older editions of HF News, please go here.

     

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SRPP Now Open to Regular Members
When the ability to post in the Science, Religion, Philosophy, and Politics section was made a feature for upgraded members only, many members were furious at the miniscule portion of lesser-quality members ruining it for those who enjoy a discussion. Fortunately, this is no longer the case after March 26th, 2015, as the Prestige formula has finally been put to use and allows any member with a Prestige of 25 or more — regardless of rank. The announcement thread can be viewed here.

Sales Tags Introduced
After the initial preview of tags purchasable with Omnicoin to decorate thread titles in June of 2014, they were seen in action on March 26th, 2015, across several Marketplace sub forums. Many members were concerned over the tags' strong presence littering the marketplace sub forums, however this is still in testing with many changes to be made, and Omniscient is seeking members to design potential tags for the forum. If you feel yourself capable or wish to view current submissions and impressions, more information can be found in the announcement thread here.

Session Cookies Tightened
To help protect members' accounts, Omniscient has made several adjustments the core MyBB cookie class which now terminates the sessions across every device accessing the account. Members may continue to log in through as many devices as they wish, however one log out will destroy all cookies, forcing a new log in. More information can be found in the announcement thread here.

Reputation Characters Restricted
Many members have included the range of characters that exceed their row's comment bounds when giving reputation, obstructing other table entries. To combat this, the entry field for comments has now followed suit of thread titles and no longer supports special characters i.e. characters outside the Latin alphabet. The announcement thread can be viewed here.

     

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User News
Bans*
Vacations
Closures
  • Sktchy had their account closed.


Repfucks
Awards
  • Martino received the Drunk award.
  • iHydra received the White Hat Helper award.
  • Hexicidal received the Speaker of the House award.
  • Tick received the Cool award.
  • Moeseph received the Benefactor award.

* - As of the Monday prior to release.

     

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Announcement Threads

---Sales Tags - Omniscient
---A new plugin is being implemented to include sales tags on marketplace threads, but Omniscient needs your help! Design a few sales tags and get a nice reward!

---Sales Tag Beta Released - Omniscient
---The new sales tags are in beta testing for Ub3r members only. Check the thread out if you want more info about purchasing one for your thread.

---Security and Persistent Cookies - Omniscient
---Omniscient has added a new feature in an attempt to secure HF accounts more.

---Prestige for SRPP - Omniscient
---In an attempt to get more activity in the SRPP section, Omniscient has allowed regular members to post. Read the thread for more information.

---Strict Reputation Characters - Omniscient
---A new plugin has been implemented to stop members from using special characters in reputations.

---Nightfall - Omniscient
---Due to a large amount of harassment from the group Nightfall, the group has been suspended for one month.

Informational Threads

---Sir and Drama - Omniscient
---Omniscient has let the Sir drama go on for too long and has let everybody know that it is over with and is not going to be tolerated.

---Darkcoin Award - Omniscient
---Omniscient asked the community if they would be interested in a new crypto currency award called, Darkcoin. After some great feedback from the community the award has been implemented.

Entertaining Threads

---Trolls Have Personality Disorders - Omniscient
---Omniscient started a thread about the trolling on Hack Forums and how trolls have personality disorders.

---Let's get #Hackforums trending on twitter. - Arcanine
---Arcanine is trying to get Hack Forums trending all over Twitter and is getting the entire community involved!

---Whats a good car to get? I got 40k... - Cyber Army
---What car would you buy if you had $40,000? Well help Cyber Army decide!

Member Feedback Threads

---Just when it rains - Voice Feedback to HackForums. - Hexicidal
---Hexicidal's feedback thread.

---Vanilla's final feedback/farewell thread - Vanilla
---Vanilla's feedback thread.

---About that time - 'Chief
---'Chief's feedback thread.

---2 amazing years, thanks! - ScreemS
---ScreemS' feedback thread.

Contests & Giveaways

---[CRYPTEX / SPECIALISTS] MASSIVE CONTEST - 11 PRIZES - ALL INVITED - KillαMuvz
---KillαMuvz is upgrading members and giving away awards and a product license! Check it out to find out how to win!

---40$ BTC GIVEAWAY for ALL MEMBERS | EASY 40$ | NO SIGNATURE| 3 WINNERS |DONT MISS THIS - ErudiN
---ErudiN is hosting a contest with cash prizes! Check out the thread to read more!

Miscellaneous

---HF Username Glitch (Get any username) - OFWGKTA
---OFWGKTA informs members of how to use special characters to get any username you desire.

     

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Interview - xadamxk (Click to View)

Interview - Who Soup (Click to View)

     
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Do you enjoy reading the HF News? Do you think others might enjoy reading the HF News? Do you want to show your support for what we do?
Wear our Support Signature and show us you care! Numerous members don't even know we exist, make a change!

Support Signatures (Click to View)

     

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The Fall of Nightfall

Nightfall (now removed on the groups page) has been suspended by Omniscient due to problems with other groups. All leaders of Nightfall were removed - Vinnie and Panik both received bans (one month and one week respectively) for encouraging their members to harass, dox, and rep abuse members of other groups. Omniscient has noted that Nightfall may be permanently removed if this behavior continues; many of Nightfall's members are currently devastated.

Leadership Changes
  • inxy has been removed as leader of Nightfall.
  • Jerv has been removed as leader of Nightfall.
  • Nobility has been removed as leader of Nightfall.
  • Teh Afro has been removed as leader of Nightfall.

Current Open Group Recruitments
Important Group Related Threads
     

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Omnicoin Services Rapidly Developing
As a result of several factors including multiple bounties and the ability for users to apply for a free Omnicoin.net subdomain, development of Omnicoin-related services has exploded. Services including the first Omnicoin Dice Game, an Omnicoin IRC Chat with an integrated tipping bot, and more are showing up on a regular basis in the Omnicoin subforum. If you want to start up your own service, you can pick up an Omnicoin.net subdomain via the link above.

Weekly Highlights
New OMC Exclusives

None this week.

Click here to start your shop for a chance to be featured in the next edition.
     

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Site Statistics
  • Total (Click to View)
  • Average (Click to View)

Ban Statistics
  • Last Week's Bans (Click to View)
  • Total Bans (Click to View)

Forum Counts
  • Tab Counts (Click to View)


Membership Counts
  • Groups (Click to View)

* - As of the Friday prior to release.

     

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What Is This Section?
Welcome to Weekly Updates where I, iHydra, will update the community with what the HF News Team is planning in the future. Each week I will give a short and brief update and anything else that needs to be stated for that edition. Thanks for reading this edition, and hope you read future editions and enjoy them all.

New Section - Opinion Weekly
HF News Team is working on implementing Opinion Weekly where our team will ask other community members for their input or opinion on a question or topic. Paired up with it will be the results of a weekly poll. We'd love to see what the community thinks of various topics related to the world and HF. This will go into effect on Edition 234 so make sure to check out the new section starting next week.

Podcast Has A New Host
As many of you can tell, Baghead as stepped down and Orchid has taken his place. This will be permanent and Orchid will stay with us until he leaves Hack Forums. This took effect with today's edition, number 233. We'd love to hear your feedback on this change.

More Sections?
Music News and World News may make a comeback, it's still being discussed but we'd like to hear from you, do you think it should be included in our weekly editions or not. Let us know what you think by posting in this thread.

     
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Two New TLS Attacks Discovered
The RC4 algorithm is used in conjunction with TLS for approximately 30-35% of today's TLS traffic. Cryptographers and mathematicians have long-since realized that part of the PRNG (Pseudo-Random Number Generator) used for encryption gave out some predictable bytes, but in 2013, a team of security researchers developed a way to decrypt small amounts of HTTPS traffic. In 2013, the attack require over 70 billion data points (same data encrypted with different RC4 passwords) in order to guess future bytes. Even though it required a large amount of repeated captures of the same data, Internet giants, such as Google, took countermeasures against it. Now, recent refinements to the attack allow it to be done with around 60 millions data points, which is less than one tenth of one percent of the original attack. Another attack, dubbed the Bar-Mitzvah Attack, utilizes a 13-year old weakness (hence the name 'Bar Mitzvah' which is a Hebrew tradition that teenage males perform) in the RC4 algorithm which led to the successful exploitation of WEP (Wired Equivalency Protection). It allows for a non-negligible probability of decrypting parts of the TLS encrypted packets.

Thousands of Twitch Accounts Have Been Breached
The well-known streaming site, Twitch, which enables PC gamers to stream their gameplay live, has had several thousand accounts breached by unknown hackers. Amazon purchased Twitch in 2014, and has therefore taken responsibility for this breach. Amazon took several active measures such as resetting all of the user passwords as well as disconnecting their accounts other social media accounts that are used for Twitch promotion such as Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter. Though it is not known how user accounts were breached, or if the Twitch website itself was attacked, Twitch accounts for about 2% of all United States Internet traffic and a vulnerability in the website, if left unpatched, would have detrimental repercussions. According to the Wall Street Journal, who obtained a copy of an email that Twitch sent out to its affected users, reported that Twitch had said that many items including passwords, e-mail addresses, usernames, home addresses, phone numbers, and birthdays may have been accessed. The company has not outright confirmed a breach, saying that it's still investigating.

Vawtrak Trojan
A new malicious trojan program called Vawtrak has recently come to light. Discovered by a group of security researchers, it has the ability to talk over the well-known encrypted, anonymous communication network, Tor. Malware programs of this caliber are usually nothing special, however, Vawtrak is specifically designed to be deployed within banking networks and has many specific bank-oriented features built into it such as stealing financial information and executing bank transactions. It has been found in the wild spreading by several methods, such as emails, document exploits, and social engineering, but once it is installed, it attempts to spread itself by drive-by downloads, malware downloaders, and exploit kits. Vawtrak uses a custom Tor2Web proxy program that allows it to connect to hidden services and maintain an encrypted connection to its Command and Control central server without having to download 3rd party applications like Vidalia or the Tor Browser. Bank viruses are slowly becoming more and more popular in the malware community, which also means that malware protection is being taken more seriously.

     

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Cisco Patches DoS Vulnerabilities in IOS Software
Cisco, the company behind most enterprise networking equipment, released several patches to their IOS and IOS XE software last week. The company released a patch to fix sixteen vulnerabilities across seven components of their IOS software. These vulnerabilities affect Autonomic Network Infrastructure (ANI), Common Industrial Protocol (CIP), multicast Domain Name System (mDNS), TCP, Virtual Routing and Forwarding (VRF), Internet Key Exchange version 2 (IKEv2), and Cisco IOS XE software. The vulnerabilities are said to be executed by an attacker that can be both remote and unauthenticated and would be able to exploit the system to trigger a DOS on a targeted system. Other vulnerabilities which have been patched include DOS conditions on routers and switches normally configured for virtual routing and forwarding (VRF), memory leaks with IPv4 and IPv6 packets on the UDP port 5353, and Vulnerabilities in the Internet Key Exchange Version 2 protocol (IKEv2) allowing an attacker to trigger a DoS attack with malformed IKEv2 packets. Cisco has claimed there is no reason to suggest these vulnerabilities have been exploited as there is no evidence of it.

Nearly Half of all Android Users Exposed to Installation Vulnerability
In a statement this week, a security firm called Palo Alto Network claimed to have found a vulnerability in the Android operating system. The statement claims a Time-of-Check to Time-of-Use vulnerability was discovered sometime late last year and allows an attacker to hijack a process called the 'application installation process'. The hijack gives an attacker to take control of APKs while they install and instead install malware onto the device. A researcher for Palo Alto wrote: “We have successfully tested both exploits against Android 2.3, 4.0.3-4.0.4, 4.1.X, and 4.2.x. According to Android Dashboard, this vulnerability affected approximately 89.4 percent of the Android population as of January 2014 (when we first discovered it), and approximately 49.5 percent of the Android population as of March 2015.” According to Zhi Xu of Palo Alto Networks, the exploit is only possible through any third party marketplaces on Android versions listed above. The reason the exploit isn't possible on the Official Google Play store is that the Play store will only download the APKs into protected areas on the device that can only be used for the Google Play store. Third party applications, APKs, and stores cannot access the protected       reserved for Google Play.

RadioShack Planning to Auction Customer Data
RadioShack, a technology based retail chain, is looking to sell out their customer data from underneath themselves in part to their recent bankruptcy sale. Hilco Streambank claims that over 65 million customer's names and addresses, alongside millions of emails, can now be purchased by who ever is willing to pay the highest bid. In doing so, RadioShack is breaching their own privacy policy seen HERE. The auction for the information has been won by RadioShack's largest shareholder Standard General. In various courts throughout the country, appeals and objections are already being made in an attempt to not allow this large dump of information to be handed out. Authorities including New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman are trying to make sure this illegal breach of privacy won't be allowed. These cases will be ongoing and more information will be provided when the situation gets updated.


     

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Konami At Odds with Kojima
Earlier this month Hideo Kojima, creator of the Metal Gear series of videogames, announced that Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain would be the last Metal Gear game with his involvement. It was later discovered that Konami had removed all Kojima Productions branding from promotional materials for the upcoming game, which was featured prominently in promotions for past games in the series.It has also been noticed that the current images of the Metal Gear Solid titles on the official Metal Gear website have been edited to remove Hideo Kojima’s name from the covers. This was discovered after comparing the site’s current images with archived images from the past. While Konami is still refusing to confirm Kojima’s involvement with the company past The Phantom Pain, they have announced that they will be hiring a new development team for the Metal Gear game following The Phantom Pain. Though tensions may be raised, The Phantom Pain’s September 1st release date has remained unchanged.

Source

Xbox One and PS4 Release of Batman Arkham Series Rumored
Remastered versions of the critically-acclaimed Batman: Arkham City and Arkham Asylum are rumored to be a part of a remastered Arkham collection for the Xbox One and Playstation 4 consoles. This rumor comes from a source close to IGN Italy. Other information from the source states that the games will be released around the upcoming holiday season at the end of 2015. Batman: Arkham Asylum and Batman: Arkham City both garnered extremely high praise from a high number of different video game review publications, IGN included. News of a remastered re-release of these games is definitely not far from the realm of possibility, with games like God of War III announced to be having a Playstation 4 remastered re-release, The Last of Us having received a remastered re-release, and the Master Chief collection of Halo games being released on the Xbox One. While players may be itching for new and original content, it would be far-fetched to say that these re-mastered re-releases won’t be met with fanfare from their longtime fans.

Source

Free Game for PS Plus Owners on PS4 for April Revealed
Playstation Plus members will have the game Woah Dave! made available to them for free for the month of April on the Playstation 4. Woah Dave! had been made available for free in the past to Playstation Plus members on the Playstation Vita. Woah Dave! is a game that involves "killing aliens and racking up the biggest score possible." The free game available on the Playstation 3 for the month of April for Playstation Plus members has also been announced to be Dishonored. The full list of games available to Playstation Plus members for the month of April is expected to be available early next week.

Source

Release date for upcoming games in 2015:
  • Mortal Kombat X - XB1, PS4, Xbox 360, PS3- April 14, 2015
  • Darksiders II: Definitive Edition - PS4 - TBA 2015
  • Tom Clancy's The Division - XB1, PS4 - TBA 2015
  • Batman: Arkham Knight - XB1, PS4 - June 23, 2015
  • Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain - PS4 - September 1, 2015

Gaming Video of the Week



     

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Ford car which slows down upon seeing speed-limit signs
Ford are working on a car which can recognize road sings and adjust its speed accordingly to ensure the vehicle is not driving too fast. The speed-limiting feature can be activated via the steering wheel and briefly overridden by pressing firmly on the accelerator. The car facility ensures it will help drivers avoid fines and drastically reduce the number of accident to ford car drivers, both an intelligent & wise move by the well renown car company. However, one car expert stated that the innovation might only serve as a "stopgap".

"There's a plan for speed restrictions to be beamed to your car's computer systems and controlled from there, rather than requiring street sign visual recognition systems", said Paul Newton, an automotive industry analyst at the IHS consultancy. "This would be part an extension of the networks that will connect vehicles, allowing cars to warn those behind them if they are slowing down, which is all part of a move toward autonomous vehicles that drive themselves."

Such a system, however, is a long way down the road. The new Ford feature will become available in the closing stages of this year, somewhere around September when it launches the second generation of its S-Max cars in Europe. A spokesman for the US car company told the BBC the facility would probably be extended to other models around the world.

How mind-controlled bionics could shape the future
A new prototype prosthetic arm was developed for a young YouTube star named Grace Mandeville, and has caught like wildfire ever since. It acts as an arm which is controlled by the impulses in your muscles, allowing you to move it freely as you wish.

Hugh Herr, from the Center for Extreme Bionics at MIT, recently suggested that advances in bionics could one day mean an end to mental disability. Quite a bold claim however one that comes from a man who helped a dance teacher who lost her leg in the Boston marathon bombings get back onto the dancefloor. And away from headline-grabbing events such as actor Robert Downey Jr offering an 'Iron Man hand' to a young US fan, it's possible to understand Dr Herr's excitement.

This surgical procedure, developed by scientists at the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago, seeks to reassign nerves that once controlled the arm and hand that's been lost, to the pectoral muscles. This allows those who have had upper-arm amputations to control their prosthetic devices by thinking about the action they want to perform, pretty cool right? This procedure is now available to the public.

Twitter launches video streaming app Periscope
On Thursday, Twitter released a video streaming app named Periscope, just days after reports that it had blocked a rival app called Meerkat. Meerkat relies heavily on Twitter and has become hugely popular since its release, yet to be shot down by Twitter's new release. Twitter's announcement comes on the same day that Meerkat unveiled a list of investors that included Silicon Valley venture capitalists Greylock Partners and Sound Ventures, Ashton Kutcher's fund.Meerkat's new round of funding is widely expected to have raised millions of dollars.

The app, which already boasts celebrity users such as talk show host Jimmy Fallon, lets people stream videos that cannot be rewatched. Twitter said in a blog post that it bought Periscope back in January and has been an ongoing project ever since, unlike Meerkat, Periscope allows users to save and replay videos later, according to tech website The Verge. The app is currently available in the Apple App Store, and an Android app is also in the works, Twitter said.

     
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Every week - assuming we get enough submissions - the HF News will feature the best submitted battlestation.
Send iHydra a message by clicking here and including an imgur link of your battlestation!

iHydra's Battlestation

     

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(1) (Click to View)

(2) (Click to View)

(3) (Click to View)

(4) (Click to View)

(5) (Click to View)

(6) (Click to View)

     

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Looks good man, first reply too. haha. lol.
Very nice Hydra triple A rating from me keep up the good work!
Very nice, I'm going to read this with a morning coffee tomorrow.
Orchid before the next podcast please take nose drops.
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I very much like the changes you've made to the news and found this edition actually worth reading. The only critique I have is that the Twitch hacking was mentioned twice.
Great edition, not much drama though :(
I see now that the circumstances of one's birth are irrelevant; it is what you do with the gift of life that determines who you are.
second page, shoutout to my mum, my dog and my sister that is 6 feet under the living room floor (basement).

But great edition, thanks for the share team.
(Mar 30, 2015 05:34 PM)Aceman Wrote:  I very much like the changes you've made to the news and found this edition actually worth reading. The only critique I have is that the Twitch hacking was mentioned twice.

Has been fixed. Thanks for pointing that out.
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That last comic actually made me laugh, heh.

You might want to put in the Echo recruitment thread.
(Mar 30, 2015 05:38 PM)Hydra Wrote:  Has been fixed. Thanks for pointing that out.
👍👍

Now that that's gone there's no reason for me to be anything but happy about this edition of the news. Specifically liked the security news and I'm glad that you cut out all the extra fluff.
(Mar 30, 2015 05:40 PM)c x y k Wrote:  That last comic actually made me laugh, heh.

You might want to put in the Echo recruitment thread.

That was just posted, it will be on the next edition, 234.
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