Firesheep: what, why, and how to protect yourself from it

Firesheep has been out for a while and it has totally opened my eyes to how vulnerable we can all be when we don't think of Internet security. I'll try to make it as simple as possible that even my teen kids can understand it.

What is Firesheep

If you're unfamiliar with Firesheep, you can read this article from the creator. If you find it too geeky then you should watch this vid instead:



Yes folks, ANYONE with this Addon can takeover your account without knowing your username nor password. This affects famous sites like Facebook and Twitter.

Why create Firesheep in the first place?

Firesheep was created to open the eyes of the users to possible hijacking of accounts. According to Butler and Gallagher:

"I wrote Firesheep because I was tired of having to deal with websites that were ignoring this problem of user privacy," Butler told me in his first interview since releasing Firesheep. "Hopefully sites like Facebook and Twitter will see this and decide protecting user privacy is a priority for them."

Watch the vid below for more on why they created it:

How do I protect myself from Firesheep and its ilk?

According to the Firesheep creator, here are the ways to protect yourself when you're in an open WiFi location:

While companies are implementing fixes (described below) you can do a few things to increase your level of security, but there’s no silver bullet (aside from stopping use of the services which you don’t want hijacked.)

• HTTPS-Everywhere - This is a Firefox extension created by the Electronic Frontier Foundation which makes Firefox use only HTTPS connections for certain websites. Like Firesheep, it only works on a defined list of websites, so it won’t protect you if you use any websites that it doesn’t support. It does not appear to be immediately simple for users to add sites without some development experience. HTTPS-Everywhere is well respected for doing what it claims to do safely.
• Force-TLS - As mentioned earlier, some websites support SSL but don’t implement it properly, leaving you at risk. This Firefox extension is similar to HTTPS-Everywhere but allows you to specify your own list of domain names to force encryption on.
• VPN - In some situations a VPN (or something similar such as an SSH tunnel) can be great. All traffic sent through a VPN is likely secure from your computer to the VPN server. But be aware that this is not a silver bullet and there are potential problems. See below for our warnings on using a VPN.

Ironically, the authors have suggested Firefox addons over Google Chrome, which is the reason now why I've decided to go back to Firefox. Besides adding the addons above, I've also added most of the addons from The Paranoid Kit to make my browser even more secure than before. Although there are Chrome extensions like the KB SSL Enforcer, it seems to go HTTP before it goes HTTPS and is therefore not an option for me.

Another common sense way to secure yourself from such attacks is to log out of sites rather than just close them. As mentioned in the video above, not logging out of Facebook or Twitter will make you vulnerable when you go to sites with FB or Twitter buttons. Think about it, logging out takes only a few seconds.

Unfortunately there will be sites that go bonkers when it's forced to undergo HTTPS. One of the examples is Status.net. You won't be able to post anything there when you force the site to HTTPS. Although it's been discussed here, the message is clear: Using HTTPS is too expensive for them and would rather become a paid feature rather than a basic one. A total turnoff really. Another example is if you force-HTTPS Facebook, you'll be unable to use the chat feature--which is totally fine by me.

The future of the internet has been shaped because of this addon. I just hope that sites like Facebook, Twitter, etc. think of making HTTPS default when anyone enters their site. Until then Firesheep (and its ilk) will keep on making their sites less secure.

Sources:
Announcement of Firesheep
Interview with Firesheep creators

Troubled kid kills mother over a game

In-game: when you kill others, they respawn.
In-real life: when you kill others they don't get up.

The boy, from Busan in Korea's south-east, got into an argument on Monday night with his mother when she "scolded" him for playing video games.

As tensions escalated, the boy strangled his mother to death before hanging himself.

Although the news above emphasized that the killer was a gamer, it doesn't mean that all gamers are violent. All this shows was that the kid needed help; too bad he didn't get it soon enough and both he and the mother perished because of it.

via Kotaku

HOTK PH is coming soon!

Just got an announcement coming from Perfect World Co., Ltd. that Heroes of Three Kingdoms (HOTK) also known as Chi Bi/Red Cliff and other PW Co. games like Legend of Martial Arts and Hot Dance Party will be coming to the Philippines via Cubinet.ph.

In November 2010, the two parties cooperated again to license "Legend of Martial Arts," "Chi Bi" and "Hot Dance Party" to the Philippines. "Legend of Martial Arts" is a 3D cartoon adventure MMORPG based on a popular TV drama series with the same Chinese name. It was launched in Mainland China in 2006. "Chi Bi" is a war epic 3D MMORPG based on the Three Kingdoms, a well-known period in the ancient Chinese history; while "Hot Dance Party" is the Company's first 3D online casual game.

It seems that Cubinet PH is grabbing nearly all of PW's games. Now if they can only include Jade Dynasty and Forsaken World into the mix, then I'm REALLY sold!

Read the whole Press Release here.

BOI PH CBT is coming this November!

Battle of Immortals will have a Philippine server coming this November 2010.

For those unfamiliar with the game, it was developed by the same company that brought you Perfect World and Jade Dynasty (ZXOnline PH): Perfect World. I tried it out in the international servers a couple of months back and enjoyed it.

Register here to play in BOI PH CBT.

I'll play this since this also plays well on Ubuntu GNU/Linux.

Aika Global: Two New Dungeons and Top 3 Legions Spotlight!

While some Aika Global players maybe just trying the game out, here's more incentive for you to go hardcore on it:

Seoul, Korea - (October 12, 2010) — For players who have reached the level cap but are still hungry for more quests and excitement, this is for you. Thrill seekers will without a doubt be on their edge as AIKA Global opens the doors to these extreme locations. T3 Entertainment and Hanbitsoft Inc. together with Redbana Philippines continue to add special events in the world of AIKA not to mention this October’s new in-game events, “Dungeon Raiders” and “Happy Halpereen!”

Allods PH CBT: Oct 11-25

Levelup Philippines has announced the Allods PH CBT dates.

We know that you’ve been waiting and everyone including us here at Level-Up! are all excited. So today, it’s an honor for us to announce that on October 11 to October 25, 2010 the Allods Online Closed Beta Realms will be available!

Yes, you read that right. Make sure that you already have an account (you can get one here) and the Allods Online Client (download the client here) and see you all inside the Closed Beta Realms on October 11 to October 25.

Get a CBT account and download the Allods PH CBT client NOW!

Source

Allods PH News: Higher patch than Allods NA, CBT Dates

Levelup Games PH's Allods PH Management Team had a meeting yesterday with a few of the guilds who will be actively participating in the game. One of the premier guild of which I'm a member of, The Holy Order of Light, has put up a blogpost in their fansite and summarized the meeting for all those who weren't able to attend. Here are just some snippets and my comments.

Allods PH CBT Downloads!

It's on baby! Download the Allods PH CBT client via torrent or FTP.

By the way that the files is named, it looks like we'll be getting the Gorluxor patch!

System Requirements:

Minimum
* Windows XP, Windows 2000
* Direct X 9.0
* 512 MB RAM
* NVIDIA GeForceFX 5200 64MB / ATI Radeon 9600 64 MB
* Graphics card requires pixel shading of 2.0 o higher
* Direct X compatible audio card
* 4GB free disk space
* ADSL 56k

Recommended
* Windows Vista, Windows 7
* Direct X 11.0
* Intel Core 2 Dup 2GHz / AMD Athlon X2
* NVidia GeForce 7600 GS 256 MB / ATI Radeon X1600 256 MB
* Graphics card requires pixel shading of 2.0 higher
* Direct X compatible audio card
* 4GB free disk space
* ADSL 56k or faster

The New Goo.gl vs. Bit.ly

Google just made Bit.ly 's life a little harder with the inclusion of stats to their URL shortener.

There are many shorteners out there with great features, so some people may wonder whether the world really needs yet another. As we said late last year, we built goo.gl with a focus on quality. With goo.gl, every time you shorten a URL, you know it will work, it will work fast, and it will keep working. You also know that when you click a goo.gl shortened URL, you’re protected against malware, phishing and spam using the same industry-leading technology we use in search and other products. Since our initial release, we’ve continued to invest in the core quality of the service:

• Stability: We’ve had near 100% uptime since our initial launch, and we’ve worked behind the scenes to make goo.gl even stabler and more robust.
• Security: We’ve added automatic spam detection based on the same type of filtering technology we use in Gmail.
• Speed: We’ve more than doubled our speed in just over nine months.

It's all good and all but it still lacks some things that Bit.ly and J.mp (yes, it's also Bit.ly powered) has:

• Usability in any Browser: For example: in order to use J.mp you only need to type "j.mp/" in front of the "http://" of the url and you're all set to go! No need for extensions nor bookmarks, therefore you can use it in ANY browser (you need to type "j.mp/http://" in Google Chrome and Chromium though).
• Ease in Sharing: You can share straight to any of the major social networking sites from Bit.ly.
• Shorter Characters: J.mp beats the two as it only has 4 characters and therefore is better with the 140 character limit in Twitter.

Although I've been a bit.ly/j.mp fan for the last few months, i'll give goog.gl a try.

Allods Online PH has been confirmed!

My guess was as good as I thought it was. Allods is coming to the Philippines!

“We are very excited to bring Allods Online to the country, and are confident that this title will take Filipinos to a whole new level of MMO gaming. Gone are the days of just hacking and slashing. The time of Astral warfare is now at hand.” says Level Up! Marketing Director and noted gaming blogger, Mon Macutay.

Allods Online, the biggest game project in Russian history which took $12 million to produce, features breathtaking graphics designed by artists honored at the prestigious global art competition, Dominance War; and a cinematic soundtrack by Mark Morgan.

With stunning visuals and a magnificent orchestral soundtrack inspired by classical, electronica, new age and tribal music – Allods Online guarantees to be a delightful explosion to the eyes and ears.

They just opened their site but has yet to provide any CBT date nor download link for the client. Most likely they will put it up there in a couple of days. Until then feel free to check out my posts on Allods Online.

It's Official: Rohan PH new server Armenes opens tomorrow!

It's official! Level-up Game Philippines' Rohan Online will get a new server tomorrow, May 13.

Rohan Philippines is proud to announce that a NEW SERVER will be opened on May 13, 2010. It will be called ARMENES and it’s a brand new world for players to make their mark on.

This new server will not only serve as a fresh start for veterans but it will allow new players to fight toe-to-toe with no fear of uber/hacked weapons/items or bot-levelled highbie characters.

The server will have a more “equal” approach in terms of game balance when it comes to equips, forsaking the existence of “uber” items made popular by the community.

I'm going to try it out tomorrow!

Conan O'Brien visits Google and explodes!

...with laughter!

Google Chrome Beta 5.0.375.29 unleashed!

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

Google has just released Google Chrome Beta 5.0.375.29, possibly making it one of the fastest browsers out there.

Today’s new beta release incorporates one of Chrome’s most significant speed and performance increases to date, with 30% and 35% improvement on the V8 and SunSpider benchmarks over the previous beta channel release. In fact, looking back in time, Chrome’s performance has improved by as much as 213% and 305% on these two benchmarks since our very first beta.

There's a lot of new features included in the new update, but the one I really like is the Bookmarks/preferences/theme sync. It's like I can pull my home browser anywhere! However there's one thing you need to be careful of, once you install the sync, it'll stay there unless you delete or uninstall it. One more thing to improve upon I guess.

gPotato: existing Aika international players can play

gPotato just announced that existing Aika international players on or before April 7, 2010 can continue playing the game.

We’re pleased to announce that non-North American player accounts which existed on or before April 7 (the day the registration IP block took effect) will be able to play gPotato’s version of Aika. The registration restriction will remain in effect for new accounts outside of North America.

So no more new international Aika accounts. This will make existing international players happy but this will make their friends/guildmates who haven't been able to create an account, go somewhere else. Granted it's a saving move on gPotato's part, but without new international players coming into the picture, the game's population will grow ever more slowly with only the North American players left to fill in new shoes.

Thanks to Triz for the heads up!

Rohan PH to open new server Armenes

Level-up Game's Rohan will open a new server on May 2010. So far, the only official notice is on the forums: New Blood. New World. Conquer Armenes.

This is a surprising move considering that two servers merged a few months ago because there were few players in one server. There are more players excited over this over the ones who don't like it.

Why they like it:

• A fresh start for old players
• It will allow newbies to play with no fear of getting PK'd (at least for the first 3 days)

Will it fail?

This event reminds me of when iAM Interactive opened a new server in Lineage 2 SEA: Cadmus. When it opened, there were a lot of players who tried it out and the two elder servers were almost ghost towns. However, after a few days, the old players went back to their old servers because they were got tired of starting all over again. In the end, Cadmus was almost empty of players that even the gold sellers didn't enter it.

I hope that the new server will mean new players will try Rohan PH out.

Allods Online 1.0.06 update coming soon!

Looking forward to better days

It's been a long time since Allods Online got a major update, hence the dearth in news about it lately, but an announcement on the main site lists down a lot of changes coming to Allods soon.

The changes will be as follows:

• Players can now split items that are in stacks. “Shift+drag” will remove one item from a stack, “Ctrl+drag” will remove half the items from a stack, and “Alt+drag” will open a window that will allow players to remove a specified number of items from a stack
• Players can now see the exact number of items that are in the trade window when trading with another player
• Fixed a bug where items occasionally disappeared from the auction house
• Players whose Flag of War was lowered before entering Purgatory will now exit Purgatory with their Flag of War lowered
• Fixed a bug with the visualization of fatigue when a player’s Flag of War had been recently raised
• Added the ability to respond to whispers. The default hotkey is “BACKSPACE”
• Fixed various bugs involving the party and raid interface
• Guild information is now displayed above players’ heads
• Fixed a bug where players under the effects of a War Banner would not have their Flag of War raised when they attacked a player whose Flag of War was lowered
• Fixed a bug where spells that had effects that last over time and area of effect spells would not raise a player’s Flag of War
• Fixed a bug where the spells a player cast on themselves would refresh the duration of their Flag of War
• Fixed a bug with the walking animation of Kanian females
• Fixed a bug with the AFK animation of Elven females
• Pets can no longer travel more than 70 yards from their master
• Fixed the quest “Regular Customers”
• Fixed the quest “Meeting the Seers”
• Fixed the quest “Yasker’s Emissary”
• Players can now fight the second boss in Gorluxor’s Tower
• Added new training quests that allow players that have already begun constructing an Astral ship to practice on a special training ship
• Improved the visualization of the League Astral ships
• Fixed a bug with the distribution of loot from treasure chests
• Fixed a bug where training quests could not be abandoned
• Fixed the quest “A New Craft” for both the League and the Empire

Besides the bug and exploit fixes, there are two things I really appreciate in this soon-to-be update:

• Ability to separate stacks: currently the players are having a hard time selling stuff on the auction house because of this problem.
• Ability to respond to whispers via "backspace": no more "/whisper weirdname"

However, most people (including me) will be waiting for the mounts and the eradication of the Fear of Death from the game (it's already live in allods.ru)

Korea to MMO underaged players: Good night!

"What? I have to sleep now?"

Most of the people I know who are hooked on MMOs know that South Korea is Nirvana on Earth. It's the place where most of the following happens:

• The place where the biggest MMOs were created
• Where online gamers are treated like freaking rock stars
• The government has a separate budget for online gaming
• The fastest Internet connection on the planet

And now add the following:

• The place where kids can't play MMOs after midnight

Yep, you heard that right, Korea just announced two policies that will help parents wean their kids off MMO bit by bit.

According to the ministry, underaged users will be forced out of gaming sessions when online access automatically shuts down as soon as the clock strikes midnight.

The policy also includes a "slowdown" system in which internet connection speeds will be stifled dramatically if underaged users are logged on for a lengthy period of time.

As a father, I think this is a great idea if implemented well. However, like all ideas, it has its Pros and Cons.

Pros:

• Online MMO population will go down past midnight, resulting to better latency and world chat (I hope)
• Kids would be able to sleep longer hours and be able to study better
• Adult players will be able to find more mature parties

Cons:

• Some kids may find a way to forge their identities as adults, and if caught will be banned from games and probably have some discussion with the police.
• Kid's characters will have a harder time in levelling up their characters.
• A chance that in order to level up fast before the midnight ban, may use hacks, powerlevelling services, and exploit bugs to get ahead in the game.

In the end, it's up to the parents to ensure that the kids cooperate with the ban.

Source

Why gPotato banned Aika international players?

Recently, gPotato has banned non-North American players from Aika Online NA.

Dear Aika players,
We have an important announcement to bring you tonight. Starting tomorrow night after our weekly scheduled maintenance, we will be restricting our area of service for Aika Online to North America, given Gala-Net’s status as the North American publisher for Aika Online. This decision may result in gPotato blocking IP addresses which originate outside of North America (for Aika only – other gPotato games will not be affected). We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience this action causes, and we encourage you to email us at aika_support[at]gala-net.com with any comments or concerns you may have.
-The Aika Team-

Source

As expected there were a lot of complaints coming from the non-NA player base. A lot of speculations were thought of as to why it was done, ranging from blocking RMT sellers to saving on bandwidth. But it seems Hanbitsoft, the game's developer, will be publishing Aika Global!

We are proud to announce that Aika Global site is now officially up.

With www.aika.t3fun.com; all of the updates, from the news to game informations are just a click away.
For those who are unfamiliar with Aika, it is an upcoming fantasy MMORPG and designed to reimagined the “massively” in MMORPG. Aika Global’s CBT informations will be updated in the new site.

Source

The question begs then if the global version will ban NA players or not. If they do, then the NA players will lose out on playing with other people in the world (some of them might actually like that, but I still think most of them won't). If they do not, then gPotato will be in such a rut that it's better to shut down the NA version anyway.

In this case, Hanbitsoft will have to answer a lot of questions! One of them is why create a global version after  gPotato offered it to everyone on the planet. It should have banned everyone else outside NA from the beginning.

My condolences go to the international players who have given their time to Aika Online NA. Look on the bright side, you have a new server you can play in soon!

Google Ad in Superbowl: Old media is not dead

It's interesting that Google, one of the foremost Internet companies on the face of the planet, to try on "old media". During today's Superbowl XLIV, the company just unveiled an advertisement for everyone to see. The ad is seen below:



What's surprising is that "old media" still has that magic to attract both Internet users and those who don't. Let's face it, Google is one of the well-known brands on the face of the Earth right now, yet they still put out an ad. Why did Google resort to such a thing? The same reason why McDonald's and Coke still put out ads: to further push themselves out there and ensure that potential customers be convinced to use their paid services and more!

Does this mean that other Internet companies will be joining the fray soon? Why not? Instead of the old vs. the new media, maybe they can help benefit each other.

Go Google!

Needles Found Inside Baby

via youtube.com

I hope the child lives through this and becomes a better person than his parents.

Posted via web from Whathappenstance