The edition you are currently reading is the 230th full edition. To read any older editions of HF News, please go here.
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Farewell, Member of the Month Omniscient officially retired the contest which has been running since February, 2009, on account of all the drama associated with nominations and voting. The award was issued to the winning candidate as a token of appreciation of the member's contributions to the forum and its community during the course of that month. The entire section is due to be wiped from the forum soon. Fortunately, it will be replaced, as Omniscient hinted at his intentions for several changes this year.
Maximum Post Length Now Group-Specific
The character count for post has been fitted with a custom plugin to separate the maximum post length by group. Previously, maximum post length was a universal 18,000 characters for all members (bar Staff+ and forum moderators). Now, primary groups now have their own post count which depending on your forum status, is either good or bad news. Regular members' has decreased to 8,000, whilst L33t's has been reduced to 12,000, Ub3r has not shifted from the default 18,000, and 3P1C has been increased to 24,000. More information on the matter can be found on the announcement thread here.
XMPP Service Shutdown
All XMPP accounts appear to have been deleted and the IM is currently unavailable for use. Members' profiles all show as having no account and connections cannot be established. Whilst Omniscient has yet to comment on the matter, members are speculating system tweaks for an upcoming major change as opposed to a security breach or a newly discovered vulnerability. Until everything is back on course, we ask that you refrain from creating accounts or attempting to use the server at all until Omniscient gives the green light.
Polls Deleted Forum-Wide
Following the recent retirement of Member of the Month, polls posted across the forum were pruned due to instability on the MyBB end as said in a statement by Omniscient. It is not yet known if all previous polls will be restored, however members may now create new polls until the MyBB bugs are squashed. More information on the matter can be found here. More information on the matter can be found on the announcement thread here.
D3xus: For the 230th issue of the HF News, we have the fabulous and (arguably) sexy Prada! Any shoutouts or comments you'd like to make to the crowd? 'Prada: I'm happy to talk with you. I'd like to give a shoutout to all of Titans, but more specifically Realizm, iHydra, Angel, and Sh1eld.
D3xus: In the short time that Titans has been around, it's certainly made a splash. What about the group sets it apart from others, in your opinion? 'Prada: For me, that's an easy question. Titans has been around for a short time indeed but it shows stability and a future-- unfortunately I can't say that about most other groups. For instance, our casino was a huge success and the financial commitment put into it was for the community and not for our own gain. Unfortunately things happened and we weren't able to advertise it the way we had planned, so some people didn't hear about the event. We have huge plans for the casino next time around that will improve the event and it's entirety. Not to mention the plans we have for other events. I've personally been in a lot of groups and I've never seen a group do what Titans does, which is why I actually tried to contribute within the group. I was also promoted to leader because of my commitment, whilst some other groups determine it's leadership through whoever buys it first. I think Titans is extremely underrated but that is to be expected. We're the under dogs trying to make a huge change.
D3xus: Is there anything exciting planned for Titans' future? 'Prada: The casino is going to happen again soon, and another event is going to happen but we're still working out the kinks for it so we'd prefer to keep quiet about it. It does not involve gambling! There are small hints placed around the website we have and we'll be putting down clues similar to what we did with the casino for sure.
D3xus: Sounds like a scavenger hunt of sorts. How long have you been planning this? How many people are involved? 'Prada: We've been planning this ever since Froggy was leader. We tried different variations and implemented new ideas and we finally landed on a finished idea. All of titans are involved, and all of titans know about it.
D3xus: When it goes live, what do you think the initial reaction will be? 'Prada: I'm sure it will be quite popular, but what do you think?I think it'll get it's usual critique from other people but hopefully a majority of people will appreciate what we're doing as it's all out of our pockets and strictly for the community's enjoyment.
D3xus: What other projects or groups are you involved in around the forum? 'Prada: I've been involved in quite a few groups for graphic related projects (The Brotherhood, Specialists, Fortune, etc.) but I stopped contributing because I didn't see it to benefit me as much. So for now, my clear devotion on HF is to Titans leadership.
D3xus: Awesome. Do you use anything you've learned on the forums in real life? Is it ever relevant, or totally separate? 'Prada: I definitely see the stuff I learned from people on HF relevant to my real life. I think what I learned from select people on here was crucial to discovering my future plans with web design. I really enjoyed the help I got in Rate My Graphic from people such as cortz, Baghead, Ripple, Rivalry, and others. Everything I learned has came from influence, trial and error, and feedback from people. I really want to pursue things in the design field and I think this forum definitely played a big part in the learning process for me.
D3xus: Do you have expectations for your personal future? Not of your projects, but of your membership here as a whole. 'Prada: I can't say that I do. Being leader of a group without paying was my main goal and now that I achieved that I don't have anymore goals. I'd like to retire here in a few years knowing I made a positive wave.
D3xus: Ambitious, but realistic. That's all the time we have, unfortunately...Any closing remarks or comments? 'Prada: It was nice talking with you. I hope I answered all questions regarding titans and myself.
.Sinister: Welcome Fʀᴀɴᴋɪᴇ, to the 230th edition of the HF News. Have any shout outs you want to make before we begin? Fʀᴀɴᴋɪᴇ: I would like to shout out the Fortune Group, really great group of guys & they have helped me out a lot as well as shown me a kindness unmatched by anyone else.
.Sinister: So anyway, I noticed you joined HF in Jan 2015 and got known pretty quick. How'd you do it? Fʀᴀɴᴋɪᴇ: I think the thing that play the biggest part in helping me to receive a bit of a name of the forums is my ability to constantly be posting.
.Sinister: I see, I see. Mind telling us a bit about yourself Fʀᴀɴᴋɪᴇ? Fʀᴀɴᴋɪᴇ: Sure thing, let me start off with my passion. Money. I have had a pretty rough life so far due to divorce in my family & many other things that has motivated me to create a better life for myself. I found a way to do this online & am currently devoting every second I can to helping further my goal of making a better life for myself and those around me. I like to think that I am a pretty solid guy & friendly individual to talk to & get along with. Another thing I love is meeting new people & helping others out whenever they need it (be it in real life with tutoring or mentorship, or online with computing problems) I just enjoy helping.
.Sinister: I'm sorry to hear that about your family. How did you start off with your passion? Tutorials? Guides? Fʀᴀɴᴋɪᴇ: I actually started off very rough. Stealing things in real life & re-selling them at school, not something I am proud of but my family had to eat. Once everything became more stable, I started reading again (something I stopped doing for a while) and eventually got into reading Forbes magazing & Business Insider. Both of these magazines talked about business in general but more importantly, online business. It really opened my eyes to a whole nother world. I immediately scraped together what I could and purchase myself a laptop. The first thing I searched up (I can't make this up) "How to make money online" & went from there.
.Sinister: Oh, well at least you're making money now. What are you currently doing to bring in $? Fʀᴀɴᴋɪᴇ: Facebook Marketing, Twitter Buying / Re-Selling (off of HF), Instagram Shoutouts (off of HF), Computer Repair Service (Locally), Tutoring (Locally for middleschoolers), Ebooks (on HF). Also, I am currently working with a few members on possibly branding and selling either programs here on the forums or clothing off of the forms.
.Sinister: Woah, I wish you great success on these projects. I notice you call yourself a "blackhat", care to tell us why? Fʀᴀɴᴋɪᴇ: Without elaborating too much on that, I had put that in my user title because of some of the things that I have done in the past involving online activities and a few of those activities fit the description.
.Sinister: Indeed, it's best to remain anonymous. What have you done that would fall into that category? Fʀᴀɴᴋɪᴇ: Phishing / Impersonation / Account Hijacking (Social Media) / Blackmailing / Pirating / Evidence Tampering / Other things. Keep in mind this was all back in the day and everything I listed is no longer associated with me or any of my doings
.Sinister: Of course, you're a changed person. Where'd you learn how to do all of this? Fʀᴀɴᴋɪᴇ: Everything I know is self taught. With the absence of parents multiple times, I had to really "fend for myself" if that makes sense.
.Sinister: Yeah, I get you. It's good to know all of this. What do you have planned for now and for the future? Fʀᴀɴᴋɪᴇ: Currently I am working on saving money for a decent car. Once I have that I will be traveling the United States in search of business opportunities and so I can add some more experiences to my life.
.Sinister: That sounds like a plan. What are some of your hobbies? What do you do away from the internet? Fʀᴀɴᴋɪᴇ: Reading / Keeping up with designer clothing industry / Music (Rap only) / & finally making guitars (like cutting the body out of wood and shaping them & everything). A few very odd hobbies but for me it just seems normal & entertaining
.Sinister: That's perfectly normal if you ask me. Now, what do you usually do on the internet? Fʀᴀɴᴋɪᴇ: Computer Repair Business, HF, Update & Check Social Media, HF, Look for other forums to read on and lurk for information / knowledge, HF. It really all comes back to me browsing HF & working to build not only my account but my personal brand. Everything I do, is to better my image & name.
.Sinister: Well, like they say, knowledge is power. What motivates you to keep on doing this everyday? Fʀᴀɴᴋɪᴇ: Knowing that money can make for a better life keeps me going. I have seen real suffering & I know what going a week or two at a time without food feels like & I would never wish that on any human being. I do this first for myself, and secondly for my family & those around me that treat me with respect. I want to create the best possible life I can for myself.
.Sinister: I can strongly agree with you on that. Thanks for your time Fʀᴀɴᴋɪᴇ! Would you like to say anything else before we wrap this up? Fʀᴀɴᴋɪᴇ: I would just like to thank you for interviewing me & Omniscient because, well he knows. Also, the Fortune group again, I am so thankful to have them as my brothers & friends.
Mar 9, 2015 08:33 PM (This post was last modified: Mar 9, 2015 08:58 PM by Oak.)
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Omnicoin Jumps to 3rd Place on Cryptsy Voting, Trouble Ensues
Shortly after being added to the Coin Vote on Cryptsy.com, Omnicoin began receiving large numbers of votes from many different users. After a short while, Omniscient decided to get in on the voting. So many votes were being cast that it became tedious to manually send each vote. Omniscientrequested that a userscript be made, and one was created by Abraham Lincoln shortly after. Within 48 hours of being added to the Coin Vote, Omnicoin had reached 3rd place.
Shortly after, Cryptsy respond stating that even though Omnicoin had shown its financial backing through the large number of votes, they weren't willing to add the coin unless they began to receive votes from a more diverse set of users. Instead of just having a few people send thousands of votes, they wanted a few hundred people to each send a vote or two, showing to them that there was a substantial community supporting Omnicoin instead of just a few people with some money.
Be appreciative of what you have and content with where you are.
Don't forget to live in the moment and never let contentedness turn into complacency.
As for the upcoming changes, I have decided to wait to implement them until edition 232. Thank you.
Hacker Breaches Johns Hopkins University Website
One of the most prestigious schools in the US has been breached and had all their data released. Inside the database was a list of current and former biomedical engineering students. The stolen information includes name, phone number and email id of students. After reaching out to the university they said that no other personal information was leaked. Credit card numbers and Social Security Numbers were not involved in the breach. Since this initial breach, it has been patched and the university is working closely with the FBI to ensure that nothing like this ever happens agan.
World's Largest Bitcoin Poker Website Hacked
Be careful before throwing it all on the table.. Especially if you play online poker with SealsWithClubs. The website is claimed to be the world's largest online poker site and when asked if their servers had been compromised they had no choice but to tell the truth. Even though hackers gained access to the accounts, SealsWithClubs informed everyone that the passwords of it's users are hashed. With that being said, they still encourages all of their users to change the email and passwords before logging into their accounts. SealsWithClubs promises to it's hardcore members that they'll get this security situation under control and that everyone's information is secure. They talk of limiting the amount of IP's that are able to access accounts and also only allowing 1 permanent withdrawal address.
Facebook Employees Can Access Your Account without Your Password
Looks like your Facebook account can be protected by high walls and a moat and the most secure password in the world, but no problem for Facebook employees. Engineers can access your personal account whenever they feel the need to. It's no surprise to anyone that your account can be monitored along with the only 65 million members on Facebook, but who would've thought that they can access not just your information, but everything on your account. This includes friends, messages, passwords and whatnot. According to what officials say, Facebook runs two separate monitoring systems and they don't even notify you when someone accesses your account without authorization. Don't worry, Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg has already fired employees that have abused this system.
SSL Protocol Exploit: FREAK
Before the 1990's, the federal government in the United States had made it illegal to have encryption of information above 512 bits. For this reason, when the SSL protocol was originally designed, it was necessary to be compliant with this law. Since its creation, there has been a 'backdoor' of sorts that can force SSL/TLS encryption into using this legacy encryption which leads to a much weaker obscurance of data. The attack, dubbed FREAK (Factoring RSA-EXPORT Keys) is available because the US government had introduced and mandated a class of deliberately weak cipher suites that could be decrypted with relative ease, especially with access to the level of hardware that the NSA does. The exploit highlights the fact that certain implementations can actually still support this legacy encryption. Testing showed that, for only $100 on Amazon's EC2 (Elastic Computing Cloud), it was able to be cracked in under 12 hours; with modification, it took only 7 hours. OpenSSL wll certainly be updated, but as of now, Android and Apple devices are using an insecure implementation.
Bountyless Bughunt Launched by Adobe
After recent breaches in their products, Adobe has finally planned to release a new web application vulnerability disclosure program. Security researchers and enthusiastic can submit valid bugs here as well as using it as a knowledge base. Unlike other companies like Facebook, Google, Mozilla -- Adobe is planning to give a reputation award instead of monetary incentives. It has been released on HackerOne which is entrusted by many reputed companies alike.
Gazon, The SMS Spreader
Another Android SMS malware was spotted in the wild namely Gazon which was influenced by similar malware like Selfmite, Heart App. This malware sends SMS to your contacts with a malicious download link of the malware itself. Many of you, especially if you stick to our guidelines, are protected from this sort of infection by Google's default behaviour of allowing Google Play apps only. Google Play isn't immune to malware, but your risk is very much lower if you stick to its vaguely-walled garden.
Google No Going through with Promised Encryption
After many reports, Google has confirmed that the default encryption that was going to be used for Android Lollipop will no longer be used due to it slowing the device performance. Google is quietly straying from talking about its full disk encryption that was promised to be delivered on all new phones. Older Android phones have an option for full disk encryption but this was going to be the first Android with standard encryption which many security fanatics were looking forward to. Google made a statement explaining that full encryption would make the device have “sludgy performance” and they didn’t want their reputation to be tainted by a slow device. Google plans on continuing towards a more secure Android device with full disk encryption soon so it can deliver on these recent promises they had to let go of.
Leak of Pre-Alpha Footage for The Division
Tom Clancy’s The Division is an upcoming game that has now had pre-alpha footage leaked online. The video was posted by the Italian site VG247 and displays a small area of the game world, showing the same city that has been seen in official teasers for the game in the past. One gaming mechanic that is shown in the leak is a combat-roll that players are inferring is going to be used to dodge bullet fire. This pre-alpha footage is shown in a low resolution and with subpar graphics, which Ubisoft has responded to with this statement: “These low resolution images and video originate from a pre-alpha test currently organised by the development team to evaluate the server infrastructure in a real world setting.” The current release date for The Division has not been specified, but the game is slated to release sometime in 2015.
Free Playstation Plus Games for March
For the month of March there will be six games available for free to Playstation Plus members, with two being distributed on each current Sony gaming platform. The two games that will available on the Playstation 4 are Oddworld: Abe’s Oddysee and Valiant Hearts: The Great War. On the Playstation 3 the two titles are Papo & Yo and Sherlock Holmes: Crimes and Punishments. Playstation Plus members who own a Playstation Vita will be able to get OlliOlli2: Welcome to Olliwood and CounterSpy for free.
Release Date for the Week of March 6, 2015:
Zombie Army Trilogy - Playstation 4, PC, Xbox One - March 6, 2015
Ori and The Blind Forest - Xbox 360, Xbox One, PC - March 11, 2015
Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number - Playstation 3, Playstation 4, PC - March 10, 2015
Assassin’s Creed Rogue - PC - March 10, 2015
Mushroom Men: Truffle Trouble - PC - March 10, 2015
A New App Emerges Aimed at Splitting Household Bills between Roommates
Ever have room mates and know the stress of splitting bills? Those days could be over due to a new App for Android and iOS. The App is called Unbill, targeted at college students still having room mates, the app allow you to split bills directly through the app via debit card. The app is unfortunately in a beta stage and only applicable to Oregon, but they should be expanding soon as popularity rises. If this sound interesting to you, check it out here: http://www.unbill.us
Apple Pay Has Serious Fraud Issues
Apple recently launched Apple Pay last year, hoping it would be able to compete with similar services such as Paypal and Google's Payment gateways. There is however one huge problem; fraud. Fraud that is astronomical in a sense of a payment processor in fact, the percentage of all transactions upwards of 6%. Many companies are opting out of using their service as it is becoming clear that is is a disadvantage. We shall see what they do next to secure their service.
Ford Enters the Electric Bike Industry
Ford is tackling an industry no car company is going after so far, the electric bike industry. They have created a bike, which they called the e-bike which is basically what you would expect of a smart bike, if one were to call it that. It connects to an app, which monitors your heart and when your heart gets too overwhelmed, it takes over and becomes electric. So it is a bike that you ride as usual, but with a bit of help when you get tired and need a rest. It will be good for 1 hour and 30 minutes straight electric use, so you will need to pedal yourself unless you plan on going somewhere within a short distance. The concept itself is pretty cool, kudos to Ford.
Mar 9, 2015 08:35 PM (This post was last modified: Mar 9, 2015 08:39 PM by Oak.)
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(1)(Click to View)[img]http://www.smbc-comics.com/comics/1425657831-20150306.png[/img]
(2)(Click to View)[img]http://gunshowcomic.com/comics/20091102.gif[/img]
(3)(Click to View)[img]http://www.safelyendangered.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/Man-of-Steel.png[/img]
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[img]http://assets.amuniversal.com/7a7443e08da40132c3b5005056a9545d[/img]
[img]http://assets.amuniversal.com/7c55b3508da40132c3b5005056a9545d[/img]
(5)(Click to View)[img]http://files.explosm.net/comics/Rob/toansweryourquestion.png[/img]
(6)(Click to View)[img]http://files.explosm.net/comics/Dave/comicmegustailovefuuuuuu.png[/img]
(Mar 9, 2015 08:55 PM)Aurora Wrote: It's great to be apart of this edition of the HF News.
Swag city mayne. Unfortunately I do not feel like I deserve to be in this week's credits. I was unable to assist due to my sister's arrival for her birthday over the weekend. I do appreciate the thought, though ;)
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