ALAS, I actually got the Sprint HTC Touch Pro phone. So here’s my attempt at a brief review I suppose, first timer;
So far, the phone is very sleek, very stylish as far as looks and hardware goes as you can see. As you can see in one of the images, it comes with all of your standard pieces, charger, USB to plug into the brick charger or to your PC. You got your phone’s earphones as well just in case you don’t like blue tooth for whatever reason, the battery pack, a 1gb micro SD card, the phone’s manual, another piece that has mini USB ports on it and what appears to be a headphone jack or a TV out jack, and lastly, the carrying case. The carrying case in my opinion is down right ugly, however I’ve been using it anyway to just to carry it, not to snap on to my belt or anything, but just to carry it around so it doesn’t get scratched up in all of it’s sexiness. Phone also comes with a magnetic stylus hidden within the phone and also a spare one in case you lose it or break it I suppose. They also provide you one screen protecting sheet that sticks right on easily and doesn’t provide any interference for the touch screen, thank the lords for that one.
Regarding the hardware, the on board RAM handles a lot at once thus far. The biggest concern that people had as I recall reading across forums is the battery life and the heat of the phone and also the phone’s hearing speaker. Much like any powerful device, the battery life always sucks. Makes you wish these companies would just dish out their ultimate batteries, but it’d probably way too costly. I’ve yet to heavily use the phone yet, but the battery does not seem to be too bad…yet. Future updates whether through an individual or the company themselves could help up the battery life, and plain old just how you manage your phone’s options with whats running, or what’s turned on–also expect extended batteries with higher MAH power in the future from the company or 3rd parties. As for the heating issue, the phone does get hot, but it’s pretty bearable in my opinion and I’m sure it’s possible to be fixed in the future with updates. I’ve no such problems with the hearing piece myself, so I don’t know what everyone is talking about, works fine for me. There was also a size issue people had, but I’m a big guy and this phone’s pretty small in my hands, so I’ve no complaints there, it’s pretty sleek.
The phone itself is pretty damned smooth, I notice some lag from time to time depending on what I’m running or doing on the phone. But the touch VGA screen is very clear and very nice. Running Windows Mobile 6.1 with HTC’s TOUCHFLO 3-D interface makes the Windows Mobile experience a lot smoother. Some applications to note that comes with the phone, your basic Sprint applications like Navigator, SprintTV, the fancy looking weather option, there’s an OZ Instant Messenger that includes AIM/YAHOO/MSN. The web browsing experience with Opera 9.5 works more nicely than anything I’ve ever used before, besides the iPhone’s Safari web browser, but I’d say it’s close to it. There’s more applications included, but I won’t get into that, ask otherwise if interested. The phone’s accelerometer makes it nice for when you want a page view or landscape view by flipping the phone sidewards just like the iPhone’s. Since this is a Windows Mobile phone, you can find all sorts of other applications on the net–wish they’d hurry up with Windows 7 and hopefully put together an application store to bundle up every application in one specific area.
There’s two ways to type on this thing, you have the touch screen keyboard which is pretty useful and easy to use, I’ve not had much problems with it despite my big hands and steely fingers. If the touch screen just ain’t your thing, then this is why they even released this phone because of it’s full qwerty 5 row pull out physical keyboard. I’m not used to the wide type of keyboards yet, but it’s easy enough to use and just takes some time to getting used to before you’re a typing master. It’s also good to note that if and when you pull out the keyboard, it’ll switch to landscape mode and have a simplistic list of icons for you to choose from instead of the Touch Flo 3-D interface. The phone also has a bunch of hard keys on the bottom of the touch screen, your home button, back button, call button, end call button, and a 4 way D-pad in the middle of all of that. The D pad’s inner circle also acts as another button for entering things. the circle D-pad is also a spin wheel, like the iPod’s where you can make a circular motion around either way to say, zoom in and out of web pages or photo’s with ease, very nice option.
Next up is the phone’s camera, it comes equipped with a 3.2 MP camera, which is very nice, takes pretty good stills and I’ll try to upload one before I get done writing this just to show it off. The video option doesn’t seem like much, I haven’t played around with it and have yet to transfer it to a computer to see how well it fairs out, but I never expect much from phone video recording on a phone, I’ll explore it more in time. The camera/photo album interface is pretty nifty, you can have it moved in a timed manner for a slide show or simply browse through them by stroking the screen in that direction. Here is an image I just took using the phone and re-sized;
All in all, it’s probably the best cellphone I’ve owned to date. Not that I’ve gone through much cellphone’s or anything, but yeah, I really like it. Since I’m no average beaver with this type of stuff, I’ve also been keeping up on and reading a lot on Custom Rom’s that individuals out there are releasing. Supposedly, these users edit the phone in ways to make it better by removing things they and a lot of others would deem useless that the companies add onto the phone, plus any other type of hacks and tweaks that could improve the phone. Of course this phone was just released and is still in early stages, there’s no doubt about it that HTC/Sprint will be releasing updates in due time to make better enhancements.
Sprint HTC Touch Pro Now Available & Alienware & Systom
Posted by: Tom // Category: Uncategorized
Well actually, the phone has been available since, what was it, the 24th of this month I believe? But that was only at select best buys and they were scarce in numbers. But as of today, the 30th, it’s being sold through telesales with sprint and I can clarify this myself cuz I’ve already ordered two of them. The original price is 579. big one’s, but 399.99 with a 2 year contract and a 100.00 mail in rebate dropping it to 299.99. If I’m not too lazy, I’ll snap some personal pictures and give my thoughts about the device when I receive it and play with it for a while.
Some other related tech shit that’s been going on with me, my Alienware laptop! When I first received it, one of the keys, the C key to be specific, wasn’t functioning properly. I wasn’t enough to bug me, but one of the plastic hooks underneath the plastic was bent or was just entirely missing. Over a period of time, I’m removing my keyboards keys to clean underneath it, when I get to that C key, another piece just falls off and it became more horrible than what it originally was. Basically when I hit the upper part of the C key, it would snap and flip upward revealing it’s under side. So, I figure I go see if alienware can send me a new tiny plastic piece, to my demise, they could only replace the whole keyboard and said they had to send an on site tech. A week goes by and no contact like they said they would, I call back and re-clarify with alienware (and by alienware I mean two foreign fellows who don’t speak english very well) to find out what the hell was going on? I had received the new keyboard, I was charged on my credit card even though they said it wouldn’t be charged directly, which he must’ve meant the charge would be charged and reimbursed upon getting back the fault hardware. OK, so I wait another week and call them back to find out WTF again, and this representative tells me they don’t even have on site people in Hawaii and doesn’t know why the two previous reps did not see that or did not know that. So by now, I’m pissed over a simple solution. I tell the guy, look, I’m pissed, I’m going to do it myself, do you have a tutorial online? He offers to get it, I say no thanks I’ll do it myself. I found it on their web page, and I handled everything myself like so. It wasn’t that bad taking this thing apart to replace that keyboard, I admit my love for opening up electronics and all–but the job was easily done, these idiots should pay me as their on site tech in Hawaii. So now I just need to call them back yet again to make sure they reimburse my money, maybe something more. I’ve read a lot crap about Alienware’s support, and I have to agree, it sucks terribly, consider this my review. However, I’ve not had any real problems with the laptop itself yet, so that’s good, it’s actually been pretty cool playing some PC games on this thing. Here’s a shot I took while working on it, the m15x with it’s bottom removed:
Just a quick update for whoever reads this and uses XBOX 360 and is interested in Call of Duty 5, or Call of Duty World At War, sign up here at this link and I was told to use a gmail account but I’m not sure how that plays a role with the situation, BUT, here it is, it works cuz I’m currently downloading it.
GET IT NOW BEFORE IT DOESN’T WORK.
So it’s a rumor and I don’t have any idea about it’s credibility. But it’s still a cool thought, and a badass rumor at that if it comes true. But yes, so the rumors are regarding Microsoft and their gaming console, the Xbox line. They’re saying the new Xbox that’s expecting to come out in 2010-2012 won’t be backwards compatible, which normally means it won’t be able to play games from the previous consoles from Microsoft’s original Xbox, and the Xbox 360. They’re actually saying it’ll be “Forward Compatible” meaning that in fact it will be able to play games from previous generation consoles, but that’s not all it’ll do, it’ll actually up the graphics severely, and not just minor things as you’d see with the likes of the Playstation 2, whereas the Playstation 2 would better smoothed out and render games from the original Playstation. A good example of this can be seen with the game Vagrant Story, as I recall personally viewing and testing a long time ago, I’ll see if I can find a screen shot of the difference. Here we go, Metal Gear Solid for PS1.
Or even with dreamcasts’ bleemcast, if anyone’s familiar, it would play Playstation games and make it look even better than what the PS2 did, but I’m not sure of it’s compatibility back then or if any error issues since I’ve never done it personally.
Back on track, so they’re saying it won’t just be a slight or minor upgrades, but make it look just like or close to that current generations graphics…that’s fucking amazing, if it is true of course…talk about technology rising. Although one’s gotta question what kinda errors will come out of this, and I’m sure for the most popular games, they’ll have it patched up in no time or have it good to go by the time of it’s release. Maybe they’ll just use Xbox Live to sell these games, gotta love emulation!
[Xbox Evolved]
While on the topic of Xbox, this is worth mentioning to me since I was, and am, a huge fan of this game. Marvel Vs Capcom 2, after bloody frickin’ years and it’s release on the Dreamcast, supposedly this game is in the making to be released on XBOX LIVE ARCADE and PLAYSTATION NETWORK, for paid downloads I presume. Here are some leaked screen shots, whether real or fake? No one fucking knows, but supposedly the ESRB rating thing is very real…what’s funny is, they quickly removed it once it started heating up with news in every one. I hope this is true, I will definitely get it on the day it releases…much less being able to play it online? Truly amazing, I hope it doesn’t suck ass and lag.
So some spammers bit the dust, dun dun dun, another one bites the dust! Let’s see the government make an example out of these people, though they’ll never stop it fully, thank you off shore marketing! And generally, just smarter tactics…not to mention stupid people, for stupid people keeps spammers paid. Man, I gotta get into this whole spamming thing.
Read the full story here.
While on the topic of spamming and internet malicious-ness, here’s a fresh exploit from google’s GMAIL. Basically, you can use this method to get anyone’s first and last name that they signed up with, with their gmail account. It’s currently still active as I’m writing this, but I’m sure it’s been reported to google ASAP and will be patched very soon…if they’re smart that is. Quoted directly from the source provided below:
This has reminded me of a post I read on http://zdnet.net back in July. Its kind of the same concept, but instead it deals with their names and emails. There is a vulnerability in Google Documents, which when clicking on a invitation link, your name and email is automatically recorded.
The steps to accomplish this as follows:
1.) Create a document under a Google account at http://docs.google.com.
2.) Email yourself the invitation link by clicking share on the top right corner.
3.) This concept can be extended by using frames to record the information.
Ex. ( < iframe src=”http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dcvdcks6_0d53j52g6&invite=g7365jj”>< /iframe> )
4.) Now If you look at the sharing list, you will see your victims email and name.
An attacker can use this method to add hundreds of documents to your Google account without your consent, while recording your name and email in the process.
[http://j3t.org]
BOY, it’s been a while since a good old post. I’ve just had some kinda bloggers block or something and just could not write about shit.
First off some time ago, these idiots at HTC announced that they would not be bringing the HTC Touch HD to the USA, and sure enough, there’s been a lot of complaints about that one…BUT it seems they’re gonna stick to it and not bring it over to the USA regardless, and bring in their other shittier products and probably years down the line when USA tech catches up, the same phone with slight changes.
Next up, a couple of laptop announcements. Starting it off with SAMSUNG. I swear I saw a Samsung laptop a long time ago, but haven’t heard anything else about it for months…’course it was in another country. But it’s official, they’re finally bringing laptops on over to the USA. I’m curious on to how good these laptops will be since Samsung just blew up over the previous years. Samsung’s X360 & X460. X360: 2.8 pounds, 64/128GB SSD drive or standard crappy HDD’s Your Wifi, bluetooth, typical ports and camera–including the HDMI port, 13.3inch screen.
X460: 14.1 inch screen with pretty much the same exchangeable insides as the X360. It all depends on how you want it built or how stores will sell them in particular, price ranges I’m assuming will run anywhere from 1,500.00 to 2,500.00.
Last but not least, since everyone’s jumping on the low end tiny laptops tech wagon. The NC10 laptop coming in at 10 inches that’ll cost about 400.-600. I presume. Release dates? Probably some time in 2009.
Now for the grand old news with APPLE. Releasing their new MAC BOOK PRO. Which they’ve just announced. Starting with the lower end existing MacBook, dropped price to 999., yeah right, who wants to own that junk over the new one?
0.95 inches thick, NVIDIA 9400M GPU or the 9600M GT, SSD options for higher prices, LED back lit screen, 15.4 screen. The normal model is about 1,999. with 2.4GHZ duo core, 2GB DDR3 RAM, but can run you up to 2,500. for extra’s like 4GB RAM and a better CPU, and probably varies depending on normal HDD’s or SSD’s depending on your build.
Then you got the heavy duty end laptop, the 17 inch version that’ll start at 2,799.
I’m not quite sure about the release dates yet, if I’m not mistaken, they just announced these, not sure if they were released–if they weren’t, then they will be soon. They look pretty damned sleek and sexy in my opinion, even if you don’t like MACOSX, which I’m not really accustomed to personally–you could easily just install Windows on it and expect top end performance.
Apple even announced an upgrade to their insanely thin MacBook AIR, changes being in bigger SSD drive options and upgraded processors, and the most notable being the Nvidia 9400M graphics card jump.
[Engadget]
Watch the whole APPLE october event here:
http://events.apple.com.edgesuite.net/0810rtdws876/event/index.html
Next up, Sony’s PSP. That’s right, not only is Nintendo’s DS getting upgraded, but so is Sony’s PSP with the PSP3000. Well, the upgrades aren’t much really, a better screen that gives off less glare when outside and a built in mic. Where the fuck is the camera at along with that second analog stick? Come on Sony, stop slacking and holding out for your later newer system in the future when modders out there are already making great things happen. This is to be released today in fact in a bundle pack with a game, UMD movie, and probably a memory stick. Then released next month alone by itself or with a memory card. Also to come with the 5.00 firmware build that supports their online store directly from the PSP when WIFI’ing, on screen keyboard, and some sorta sleep timer. Let’s see if Dark Alex is able to hack this firmware, I heard there was problems with the newest PSP.
Myspace has terrible service. This article will get into how myspace doesn’t care about it’s users at all, and their rights to delete your account without giving you any reason at all, or no warnings via email or anything. Supposedly myspace will send you messages on your myspace account if you violate anything from their terms and conditions…but if you’re out on a trip or just aren’t a frequent enough user, what do you do then? I’ll tell you what myspace does, they’ll flat out delete your account, this is the only email regarding your account you will receive:
Account deleted for violation of Terms of Service
MySpace Admin
Your MySpace account has been deleted for violating our Terms of Service.
This is usually due to one of the following:
* Nude images, sexually suggestive or violent photos
* Covering our banner ads with HTML
* Harassing other users
* You do not meet the minimum age requirement
* Spamming the classifieds, forums, bulletins, or other sections of the site
* Attempting to artificially inflate scores
* Scripting the site
Your account cannot be restored. If you choose to return to MySpace, please follow the rules.
————————-
At MySpace we care about your privacy. This email is never sent unsolicited.
If you think you’ve received this email in error, or if you have any questions or concerns regarding your privacy, please contact us at:
privacy@myspace.com
MySpace, Inc.
8391 Beverly Blvd. #349
Los Angeles, CA 90048
USA
©2003-2008 MySpace.com. All Rights Reserved.
So what would anyone wanting to know what the hell happened to their account do? Reply to the email as stated, and try to find out what happened…only to get automated messages pertaining to absolutely nothing to do with your response. What angers me the most is, I know what myspace’s terms and conditions are, I know I did not violate any of them, I’ve had the account for years, so it’s absolute crap. On top of this, I’m also aware that there are people out there who INTENTIONALLY know how to delete users myspaces. They even make money offers to do this, whether it’s to delete just about anyone’s myspace for any reason, or even taking their particular myspace URL, for example: Let’s say I created “www.myspace.com/tom” a long time ago, I’ve owned this account for years…and one day out of the blue, I get an email like the above, and I’m wondering, “ummm, ok, what did I do wrong here?” So you bicker and fight with myspace to get nothing done because it’s their rules…and in short due time, you’ll find that the account that once belonged to you is now coincidentally re-created by someone else, so now someone else owns “www.myspace.com/tom” and if you had friends and family on that account, I’m sure they’ll all be wondering who the hell is this new person? And myspace doesn’t see anything wrong with this at all, they do not give a damn, they won’t even do the REAL research to find out how a particular account was deleted to begin with and if it even adds up to whomever REPORTED it, let alone it being magically recreated with such impeccable timing by it’s new user AKA the theif.
In my personal opinion, this is how the attackers are doing it. In some form or way, they’re making false reports against an account, whether it be with photoshopped images or faked conversations, and also doing this from multiple phished accounts under different proxy servers to make it look legitimate with some type of harassment that violates myspace’s terms and conditions. For example, I coincidentally was receiving random messages from a few users with the SAME messages saying I’m harassing their husbands whom is over in Iraq, almost identical messages from more than a few accounts and I’ve never seen these people to begin with, how does that make any sense? Does myspace do the research or give you any reason? No, they don’t, here’s more proof as I’m following up with them via emails:
This was my response to the deleted message:
Subject: Report Abuse - Scam Body:
My account was deleted and I broke no such rules on this list, I demand to know WHY exactly my account was deleted. I barely even sign on to the account, there was only ONE image available and it was a photoshopped one, so anything in that list doesn’t even add up. I can almost GUARANTEE that if you actually took the time to look into this matter, whoever sent fake reports of me violating ANYTHING on that list won’t add up because I was not even signed on during those times, that’s why it’s absolute shit and I’ve had this account for such a long time and was keeping it for future uses. Please get back to me because I’d LOVE to hear what myspace has to say about this.
Myspace automated robot responds with(skip this whole section if you know what it is, basically they just copy and pasted their terms and conditions, or their automated robot does anyway, good going guys):
Hello,
Thank you for emailing MySpace.com concerning your security related issue. This reply is an automated response tailored to the subject of phishing and spam abuse. Please review the answers below to find the one that specifically meets your needs. If none of these answer your question, please reply to this email keeping the subject line and footer information intact.
What is phishing and how can I prevent from getting phished?
Phishing is when you think you are on one website, but were really redirected to a third party website that has the intention of stealing your login information. These sites tend to look identical to the MySpace.com login page, or may be a site claiming to offer a service in return for your MySpace.com login information. These third parties then use your account to send out spam via MySpace comments, bulletins or mail.
When logging in to your MySpace account, make sure that web address (also known as URL) is always www.myspace.com. If you are ever unsure, just type in ‘www.myspace.com’ before entering in your login information. Also, be aware of what you are clicking on even if it is in a message you receive from a friend or a comment on a friend’s page; they may have been phished as well.
How do I report a phishing site?
Please send us the URL/web address of the site that appears to be trying to steal MySpace.com user information. If you clicked on a link on MySpace.com that led you to that website, please send us the text from the website along with where you found it. We will work with the website host to have the page(s) removed and report it to anti phishing groups that send alerts to users.
If you have found another type of phishing site designed to steal user login information for other websites, you can report it to
http://www.antiphishing.org/report_phishing.html.
My account and/or my friend’s account is sending out spam
If your account or your friend’s account has sent out any messages that were not authorized by the account holder, please change the password to the MySpace account that sent the message.
If your password for the email account you use as your MySpace login is the same as it is for your MySpace.com account, please change your email account password right away to something different. This is done to prevent the third party from retrieving your new password from your email. For security purposes, you should use a different password for every internet service that you use.
If your friend’s account is sending out spam mail, please hit the Flag Spam button above the mail message. This sends it to MySpace for review!
When I logged into my account, Tom is saying I got phished
If you are contacting us because you have received a notice from Tom on your home page stating that your account has been phished, please do not attempt to change your password manually. This will not unblock your account. There will be a link provided for you at the end of the message. Please click on this link and follow the directions to unblock your account.
I am still unable to change my password
If you are unable to change your MySpace password, have not received your new password information, or your email address is invalid, please email a salute to MySpace.com to prove ownership of the account.
Please read the following FAQ question in regards to sending MySpace.com a salute:
http://www.myspace.com/Modules/Help/Pages/HelpCenter.aspx?Category=3&Question=26
My account KEEPS saying it is phished – what is going on?
If you are contacting us because you are attempting to send a message to a friend and your account keeps getting phished as a result, please reply back with the content of the message you are attempting to send so we may determine what is causing this. It is likely that this is occurring because you are attempting to send content that is getting caught in our spam filters. In order to avoid having your messages caught in the spam filtering system you will have to create a new message. Replying back and forth to the messages that have content in our spam filters creates what is sometimes referred to as chain link messages. These will be recognized as spam and your ability to communicate to your MySpace friends via messaging will be disabled.
I can’t send out messages, add friends, or post comments
If you are contacting us because you are having trouble sending out messages/comments/bulletins and adding friends, your profile’s outgoing communication settings have most likely been disabled. There are several reasons why these types of activities may have been suspended. Some of the reasons are as follows:
· Your account has been flagged and communications disabled due to spamming. Using automated programs, or bots, to automatically send out communications from your account is against MySpace Terms of Service.
· If you are having difficulties sending messages or leaving comments, your account may have been phished. If there are comments or bulletins on your page you do not recognize, delete them immediately and change your password. This will prevent further phishing of your account/profile and those of your friends.
What else should I consider if my profile got phished?
· Review and edit your profile – Unfortunately, phishers will sometimes leave bad code on your profile. Please remove all HTML through your safe mode (located near your home page profile picture) and add new HTML.
· Removing comments – Bad HTML code is also left in your comment boxes. You should delete comments through the safe mode (located near your home page profile pic) that say “Click Me” or messages that your friends wouldn’t leave you.
· Please also be wary of any suspicious web pages or instant messages that ask for any sort of login information. Never leave yourself logged in at a public terminal, and never give your login information to any third party.
· Please check your Spam Settings and Privacy Settings to better protect your account.
· For the most up to date messages about MySpace, subscribe to the MySpace Help blog. You get updates almost every day!
Go here to subscribe: www.myspace.com/myspacehelp
We hope you found this information helpful! If this message does not answer your question, please reply to this email directly keeping the subject line and footer information intact.
Thank you,
MySpace.com
My Reply:
None of this was helpful because it’s absolutely irrelevant to what I’m talking about, I understand all of these rules and am very aware of them and none of this is the case. So what I’ll do is copy and paste the same thing I said, until a real person see’s this, IF THERE EVEN IS SUCH A THING!
-PUSHES ZERO FOR LIVE REP- no more robots please, LIVE PERSON, LIVE REP, myspace has serious security issues in which some users know how to ABUSE the ABUSE system into deleting ANYONE’S myspace account that they want by making it look legitimate, I know this for a FACT because I’ve seen it on certain websites where people are making MONEY OFFERS to personally obtained or delete people’s myspaces, and it was obviously done to mine in the same manner cuz I’ve received no such warnings of any kind, and just so happens it randomly is deleted without any consent? Makes no sense.
(click to enlarge image)
Myspace’s Reply:
Hello,
We appreciate you taking the time to contact MySpace regarding your account. After investigating this matter further, we have determined that the profile in question it was possible deleted by you or compromised and deleted by a third party.
Please note that once a profile or content has been deleted, it cannot be reactivated.
Thank you,
MySpace.com
(Did they just actually admit that my account was possibly compromised and deleted by someone else and yet offer NO help to resolve this issue but, thanks have a nice day, we cannot help you? What the hell kinda service that houses millions of users handle business like this? Oh wait, maybe it’s because it’s a FREE account based one? I bet they’d hop right on it if it were a celebrity, or a band. So now I’m getting angry because I still don’t know if I’m talking to a real person or not, I further try to reply with information clearer than the sun below.)
What I’m trying to tell you fools is that the account was removed by HACKERS because they want to recreate the URL which is exactly what they’ll do. They file/make false reports to get accounts deleted, and you guys do nothing about it. I violated NO SUCH things on the account, at all, I know this for a fact, I know what myspace’s terms of conditions are, I’ve had the account for a long time and like I said, I barely even signed into it. Why wasn’t I notified that something bad was even going on, on my account so I could make changes IF there was even anything bad going on, on my account? No emails or anything? I had ONE photoshopped image on there of mostly a black picture, NO OTHER information on the damned page, and since I hardly signed on and had no friends on that page at all, how the hell could I have cyber bullied anyone? How can you not have records? This is insane service, you’re basically telling me it’s ok for me to find ways to delete innocent people’s myspaces, cuz I now know once it’s done, myspace won’t give two shits about it’s users and won’t help anyone. People on certain websites are openly taking money offers/bids to delete people’s myspaces, YES, it can be done, they openly sell there, I don’t see how you can NOT help people when flaws in your site’s security blatantly exists.
Just like that folks, they stop responding. Now I dunno about you or where you’re from, but to hell with where I’m from, to anyone, that spells a big: TOUGH SHIT, FUCK YOU. It’s not that I care about myspace that much at all, it’s the god damn principle, how can a service that houses millions of users be so much like the wild wild West where anything goes? Don’t give me that they have millions of users so it’s hard to control crap (but we all know, time is money,) nor it’s stated in their policy crap, everyone knows every business will do this in the tiniest of fine print to cover their asses JUST IN CASE. I mean come on, are you running a real business or a playground? I’ve never even used facebook before, but just from that alone, I’d suggest people go to www.facebook.com instead, cuz I highly doubt their service is anywhere near as horrible as myspaces is, from what I’m told and have heard by many others.
So in conclusion, myspace in my opinion can still be a fun place (or dramatic one depending on how you want it to be), just don’t take it seriously at all (don’t rely on it for friends/family/business type of contacts like I know millions do) cuz one day, your number can also be pulled and you’ll be treated in this same manner, that of a piece of trash, not a human being/user of their service that brings them a lot of money.
Myspace, a place for fraud.
They also state that they care about it’s users privacy, right, now here’s some screen shots of MYSPACE’s ADMIN panels from someone named Trainreq: (click to enlarge images)
-Tom
Everything And Anything
I HAVE RETURNED. I’ve been busy with a quick job that required me to fly to another island out here in Hawaii, from Oahu to Maui, and unfortunately upon my return, I fell pretty ill and still am, but seem to be doing better now. Here’s a picture from the plane and a couple of video’s from the plane’s window view, first one is arriving to the island of Maui and the second one is landing in Oahu.
On with the toys, I’m gonna cover a lot in this here one entry for missing many days. First off, we’re gonna mention Nintendo’s new DS, or DSi, they’re calling it. The system itself will be slightly thinner, and have slightly larger screens. The most noticeable changes would be the two camera’s, one being an external one at 3MP, as well as a front facing camera, and an SD slot for memory. The bad part is, no backwards compatibility for GBA carts. I wonder why they just don’t officially release an emulator for it and use the SD card for the memory issues? Nintendo is also going to be using Nintendo Points, or previously known as Wii Points, just like the Xbox 360 for extras. It’ll be released in Japan by November 1st, and rumored for America in 2009 some time, estimated prices from 160.00-200.00.
[joystiq]
While on the topic of Nintendo, I came across this little picture here…an NES bong like pipe, what will they think of next? I recall see something similar in the past, except it was an N64 controller instead, what the hell is wrong with these gaming pot smoking geeks? I bet the games come to life!
[Gizmodo & Aeropause]
While still on the topic of video games and gadgets, seems Microsoft is going to be using their gaming division, or namely Gears of War to sell more Zune’s. I’ve never beaten Gears of War yet but I have played it and it is awesome and I shall get to it one of these days, hopefully before part two releases. Dig the design, though, I don’t know about the price at 280.00 with preloaded Gears of War goodies, already out to be pre-ordered with Amazon and Walmart.
[Engadget]
YAGOOGLE, Google, according to Google’s blog, in honor of their 10th birthday, they brought back their oldest index from January 2001. Meaning, you can search keywords that existed back then that are probably not here today. Good for finding old stuff, question is, is will the old sites still be up in the old search index?
http://www.google.com/search2001.html
[Google Blog]
Don’t like the rain? Well here’s the umbrella for you, it screams out, FUCK THE RAIN with it’s big middle finger. Also works great for Satanic cults or comedians who want to give a big shout to FUCK GOD, or FUCK HEAVEN, whatever your belief is. Personally, I’d hold it out to my back to aim it towards people, or perhaps just point it out in front of me like I was shooting people with it, the Penguin style from batman, or I believe it’s actually doable in real life. I love the rain, so fuck you umbrella, I’ll point you else where–how about satellites?
GUNS came to mind, how does this fit in with all of this? Well I love guns. But today, we’re gonna take a look at some futuristic type of guns in the making, or better enhanced one’s anyway, starting off with the XM25. The XM25, a grenade launcher type that fires smart rounds of various types. The idea behind this weapon is to cause less collateral damage, so it could seek out enemies directly, when fired, it would explode near that enemy rather than potentially missing or hitting something else to detonate it.
Next up is the KRISS .45 SMG. The purpose of this gun is to greatly lower recoil with a full automatic sub machine gun with bigger rounds from the .45 instead of your average 9mm with say, the MP5. As weird as the gun looks, you can see the power behind it and it’s system on the inside that takes away most of the recoil.
Next up, we got the ultimate room cleaner right next to that Kriss, hell, you could fight off a swarm of zombies with this thing and the proper ammunition, just hope this baby doesn’t jam early once they get it out there. The AA-12 Combat Shotgun, full automatic shotgun with light recoil. You can see how dangerous of a weapon this thing is in the two part video, not to mention it’s various different types of rounds, what a scary weapon. And if that wasn’t scary enough, they’re making it so it can be remotely used at a distance with two of them mounted like it was some type of anti-aircraft type of weapon. But, on a new armored vehicle called Grizzly that’s built to with stand explosions, nifty for rescues.
In this next video, this one’s pretty trippy. They use type’s of energies as weapons, who saw this one coming, huh star trek/star wars geeks? Electrical visual man man thunder bolts, along with a type of laser that fucks with your eye’s like a flash bang type of grenade, but more controllable.
While I’m on a spew about guns, some time ago this year, the person supposedly responsible for Nicholas Cage’s character, Yuri Orlov in the movie “Lord of War” was captured. He’s nick named “The Merchant of Death” and is an international arms dealer, real name “Viktor Bout”. I’m surprised he even got busted, much less, if he’ll even be tried or released with his power to the world…it’s either or, released or killed. More information here.
Now for politics, I’m live here with Homer Simpson:
Followed by something REAL. Watching this video makes me sick of the world, because I absolutely agree with just about all of it. Are people that fucking dumb to see the truth? Or they don’t want to? People just wanna live out their own lives and play make pretend until it affects them directly…maybe it’ll be too late then. Ever hear the saying that some people fight now so their children and so and so forth won’t have to? Unless they don’t mind being slaves, cuz that’s slowly but surely where America is headed along with the rest of the world. Aaron Russo, a true patriot, died in 07, never mind about voting for politicians or any of that bullshit, open your eyes people.
How could I make a huge entry like this and not mention bitches, I mean, walking vagina’s, I mean, hot inked, or not just inked, but punky type of gals?
Today we got a couple of gaming related weird news, or funny at that. First off I stumbled across this news from our very own locals down here in Hawaii, and I could not help mentioning it because I’ve lots of experience with this myself. It’s to do with public transportation, or THE BUS, where a man was suspended while he’s being investigated for…FOR PLAYING HIS PSP WHILE DRIVING, like in traffic and shit, hahaha, two hands and all–a woman caught his ass and took pictures of it and reported him. As fun as playing a PSP while driving sounds, I’d say to do it on your own time when you aren’t driving a lot of people…but even if you did it alone, you’d still be putting people at risk with a possible accident…or maybe it’s not as fun when you aren’t risking a lot of people’s lives or somethin’, haha. Oh, my experience with is, is I’ve caught the bus for years and I’ve seen all sorts of crazy bus things…I’ve got all sorts of crazy bus stories, but I’ve never seen a bus driver gaming on the job before, shucks. Full article here.
Next up, we got us a youtube video that I just had to post because it involves video games and SEX, who could resist? OK, the real reason is because it involves NINTENDO, and the Wii, and sex, who would’ve ever thought that would happen, right? Well it does exist, good shit;
So it’s more comedic than sexy, well we’ve all seen sexy before with the Wii hula hoop girl, wait, fuck that one, for those who haven’t seen the girl playing Wii Bowling, here’s the Wii naked girl, or there’s a scene where she’s playing the Wii…NAKED, video below shows some nudity, not safe for work, 18+.
That’s seriously the best thing I’ve seen about the Wii, one of those should come with it and maybe I’d buy it.
DRM, or Digital Rights Management, is something that is becoming increasingly prevalent in the online market. iTunes sells songs with DRM on it, most PC games come with DRM, even Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 have DRM on their digital content. DRM is a method of protecting a company’s digital property, but what it’s doing is simply hurting the legitimate consumer (except with the case of Steam, more on that later) and not even having an effect on piracy. If companies know this, why do they seem to simply strengthen the grip of DRM? Spore, published by EA and developed by Maxis Software, is one of the latest examples of heavy DRM restrictions.
If you’ve been keeping up with game news lately (or have visited Amazon and saw the reviews for Spore), you know that Spore has been getting a lot of heat for its use of DRM. Spore uses a modified version of SecuROM (more on that later), and requires you to authenticate when using online access. When it shipped, it only allowed you ONE account per CD-Key. That’s right, if any of your other family members wanted to play and use their own account, then they would’ve had to cough up the money for their own copy of Spore. However, seemingly due to all the flaming of Spore’s DRM, they decided they’d loosen that part of their DRM restriction a little bit: you can still only have one account, but they added the ability to create additional “screen names” for each account, allowing you to finally let the rest of your family play (well, at least two others) without having to buy a copy of Spore for each person. Another heavy DRM restriction it shipped with, and possibly the worst of them all, was that it limited the number of times you could install Spore by 3 installs for your entire lifetime. However, in another attempt by EA to cover their now-swollen asses, they announced that “sometime in the near future” you’ll be able to “deactivate” a computer’s right to play Spore and free up one of those slots, thus making it relatively easier to deal with.
So, back to my original question: if companies such as EA clearly see that this kind of DRM protection is not working, why do they insist on just making the grip tighter and tighter? Do EA and companies like them think that it’s okay to fuck over your loyal, legitimate, paying customer, citing “piracy protection” that doesn’t even work? Spore’s DRM was cracked and torrented four days before Spore even shipped to retail. Every other game you put excessive DRM restrictions on, the same thing is going to happen. It simply DOES NOT WORK. I am not one of these people, but there are many out there who start pirating simply BECAUSE of DRM. No one wants music or a game they purchase to be restricted and limited, do they? Why would someone pay for a $50 product that has limited functionally when they can get it for free with no limits? What if you had to buy a song all over again just because you played it in 3 different CD players, or on 3 different computers? You’re hurting the wrong people here, guys.
I’m not trying to single EA out here. They’re not the only company that does this, and they are at least trying to make things right, but these ridiculous restrictions shouldn’t have been put in the game to begin with. Yes, I understand that they want to protect their property. There’s nothing wrong with that, but I’m calling out EA and every other company who wants to restrict their customers to rethink their strategy. You’re hurting the wrong people and it’s about time you realize that fact. For an example of DRM done right, simply take a look at Steam. Games downloaded via Steam only work for the Steam account that you upload it to, but you can log into Steam and download/play those games from any PC you want. Sure, EA would most likely argue that Steam is purely digital distribution, but isn’t EA trying to be at the forefront of digital distribution? If PC game piracy is such a big deal, and it is, then why not just go strictly digital distribution? Yeah, it’s a big change, but isn’t it a change you’re already pushing for?
Now, about SecuROM. SecuROM has been the source of controvery for some time now, and its inclusion in Spore has re-sparked and inflamed it. There’s even an ongoing legal battle against EA for including it. The controversy surrounding SecuROM lies in how the “protection” works: SecuROM uses your computer’s resources, including RAM and even network resources, to function. This kind of unauthorized tampering of your computer has even been said to cause damage to disc drives, causing them to run slower or faster than they are supposed to operate, thus causing it to wear out very quickly. SecuROM is usually “snuck” into a product without any notification whatsoever, as is the case with Spore. SecuROM also installs an additional piece of software that it does not inform you of, which has been known to cause additional system problems. In short, though, SecuROM is very bad business. If something other than the product you’re installing is also installed on the computer, you are legally required to mention that in the terms of service / EULA during installation. It’s as simple as that. Until companies stop using SecuROM and think of a better way to protect their property, they will only be met with more legal recourse.
To wrap it up, a note from Tom:
Kyo: finshed writing the DRM article
Lunatic: oh word
Lunatic: here quote me
Lunatic: Tom says: Ladies and Gents, -Loosens up Collar-
Lunatic: FUCK DRM
Today we’re gonna have a walk in the park with David Kernell and how to be an elite hacker. That’s right folks, I will teach you how to be an email top dog FBI-will-be-after-you cyber badass. I will walk everyone through step by step with pictures and show just how easy it is, in the same way Sarah Palin’s email was penetrated.
For more information on the Sarah Palin email hack, read my other articles in order;
Sarah Paladin
Sarah Paladin Strikes Back
Sarah Paladin Return of The Feds
Gadgets And Paladin Update
Carrying on, keep in mind, a lot of services have things just like or similar to this, but we’ll be using YAHOO as our example. This is purely for educational purposes, anything you do with this, I am not liable for. Therefor, you, yourself, are responsible for your own actions.
First off, we’re gonna start with simply using your web browser as shown, any web browser will do. For Yahoo, you’ll wanna type in “mail.yahoo.com” and hit enter and let it load.
Once loaded, click on “Forget your ID or password?” as shown.
You must know the persons email you want to break into, so type it in the top box and type in the captcha code for whatever it shows you and then hit next. (Click any images on this page for full size)
The next window will ask if you would like to use your alternate email address, since we don’t have that, click the lower option “I can’t access my alternate email address” and then hit next.
Now this is the tricky part that would either make you not be able to do this at all unless you already have this information, or can find it depending on who the person is and what you know about them and/or the type of services they have online that you could find stuff out about them. Google and other search engines are your friend, also keep yellow and white pages in mind.
Onward with the show, this next step will require you to enter three pieces of information to verify that you are the owner of this account. Birthday, Country, and Postal Code. However you obtain or have/know this information, enter it now as shown in the boxes and hit next. If the information provided was correct, it’ll move to the next screen, if not, it’ll tell you the information was wrong. Also keep in mind that you could try randomly guessing but your chances are slim to none without some type of information you can ascertain. Although I believe most places will only allow you to try 3-5 times before locking you out of the account for 24 hours or so.
This will be the last piece of information you will need and usually the hardest piece of information depending on what the question is. As shown in the image below, it asks for a pets name. Information like this can possibly be found in your targets personal based websites, whether blogs, myspace, facebook, anything that you may know of. The way David Kernell did it was simple because his target is widely known, this also goes for the information just before this one, it’s not hard to find on the internet with little searching. Sarah Palin’s question was: “Where did I meet my husband?” which the answer was the high school they attended. Enter this information or try guessing it based on what you do know about this person, if I recall correctly, like the above step, you’ll have only a few tries to do this before the account locks out for hours. If you’ve got this far and enter the correct answer to the question, hit next.
If the answer was correct, you will now see this screen. If it wasn’t correct, it will tell you it was incorrect. But if you get this far, you’d might as well tap yourself on the shoulder, hope you used security measures, cuz you have just compromised this account. Simply enter the new password and hit next, and the password will be changed to whatever you changed it to.
Voila, you now have access to the email and everything that comes with it. Naturally, when the real owner tries to sign on, it will tell them invalid password and they will try to get their account back using the same method you just used. To prevent them from doing just that, simply edit the account settings and change the zip code and or country, some things like the birth date are hard coded into the account and cannot be changed or accessed normally. It’s possible to do this by contacting yahoo with yahoo’s support, as any other services I’d presume. It’s also good to note that just because you’ve further locked out this person from their account, this does not mean they cannot get their account back still. If they follow up with yahoo support directly, they’ll be able to use their old information to verify themselves to further reset the account. So if anyone has experience with this, if you have ever had your accounts taken from you, if you can verify the old information on the account, there’s a good chance they will get your account back for you. To protect yourself from these type of attacks, do NOT use easy to guess question and passwords as shown in one of the steps, do NOT provide this information ANYWHERE on the internet, keep your private information to yourself and out of public’s eye, and you’re less likely on being easily “hacked.”
In conclusion, this is very common knowledge to most, any real hackers or knowledgeable people would laugh at this, it’s more or so a mockery in my opinion, but proven to be just as useful if you know what to do. I’ll also note that this is NOT hacking, just a form of abuse and manipulation, but it can still get the job done. So, happy “hacking” and enjoy your new found ability and adventures, you’d might as well throw your computer in the ocean after you’re done to avoid being potentially caught, sentenced, and fined some 600,000. BS amount of money, you keyboard cowboys, you cyber samurais.
Related Blogs
- Related Blogs on David Kernell
- Hunt for Palin Hacker Shaping Up to Be Simple Case
- The Kernell of Truth
- Arrest for the hacking of Palin’s email coming soon: David Kernell …
- FBI Net Tightens On Palin E-Mail Hacker
- Sarah Palin Watch: E-mail Hacked and Family Photos/Voicemail …
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