WhatsApp to start sharing user data with Facebook

Finally, which was feared has happened now. When the popular cross-platform messaging App, WhatsApp was bought by Facebook in 2014, it was assumed that the very premise of privacy on which the App was built, would be shattered. WhatsApp had gained trust and popularity based on its no ads policy and respect for users privacy. Naturally, Facebook buying WhatsApp had users worried that their data would somehow be shared with the social networking behemoth.
At that time it was known that it was just a matter of time when Facebook integrated WhatsApp into its plan of minting money using 1 billion WhatsApp users. WhatsApp Co-founder Jan Koum has written a detailed blog post trying to assuage WhatsApp users frustrations. In the post, Koum said “Respect for your privacy is coded into our DNA, and we built WhatsApp around the goal of knowing as little about you as possible.”
“But what WhatsApp users feared is happening now and Koum may have to eat his own words. WhatsApp has finally fallen to the lure of money and is loosening some of its own restrictions, and has announced it will begin sharing a limited amount of user data — including individuals’ phone numbers — with parent company Facebook.

Officially, WhatsApp says that sharing this information means Facebook can offer better friend suggestions by mapping users’ social connections across the two services, and deliver more relevant ads on the social network. Additional analytics data from WhatsApp will also be shared to track usage metrics and fight spam.
However, WhatsApp users are convinced that this a sham and their data will sooner rather than later be used for advertising and making money for Facebook. WhatsApp is keen to preempt criticism, and says that although it’s changing its privacy policy, it continues to support end-to-end encryption. “Even as we coordinate more with Facebook in the months ahead, your encrypted messages stay private and no one else can read them,” says the company in a blog post. “Not WhatsApp, not Facebook, nor anyone else. We won’t post or share your WhatsApp number with others, including on Facebook, and we still won’t sell, share, or give your phone number to advertisers.”

Happy Internaut’s Day

Sir Tim Berners-Lee created the World Wide Web at the CERN Labs headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland between 1989 and 1990. The WWW was made available for general use on August 23, 1991. Today, we’re celebrating the 25th anniversary of the World Wide Web and the Internaut’s Day

Who is an Internaut?

An Internaut is a person who knows how to design and access the internet. This involves finding information on various websites, blogs and web servers using search engines. Basically, you’re more of an Internaut if you have more technical knowledge about the internet. Like, if you know about the domain name system, URLs, how the search engines work, etc. It would be great if you can contribute as a designer of the internet.
Initially, the members of the IETF were called the Internauts, but with time, the horizon of the term expanded for common folks also. This is because more and more people have learned to use the internet and develop websites.
So, you’re an internaut as you can open websites, download files, and also know some technical stuff about the internet.

Happy Internaut’s Day

If you have something to add, tell us in the comments below.
Also Read: 25 Years Of Linux — The Most Successful Software Project Ever Has 21 Million Lines Of Code

Snowden Documents Confirm That NSA Hacking Tool Was Compromised by Shadow Brokers Hacking Group

A mysterious group by the name of “The Shadow Brokers” had dumped what appeared to be some of the National Security Agency’s (NSA) hacking tools online last Friday. Since then, experts have been trying to find out if some of the U.S. spy agency’s powerful hacking tools were actually compromised.
According to The Intercept, these tools are stated in documents leaked by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden. Yesterday, The Intercept reported that the newly released documents from the cache of documents leaked by Snowden now seem to confirm that the 301MB archive of NSA hacking tools, exploits and data are indeed true.
The hacking tools come from what’s called the “Equation Group,” another hacking group long believed to be an NSA offshoot. The hackers who leaked the NSA’s hacking tools asserted that they were only dumping some of the tools they were able to obtain, and demanded millions of dollars in ransom for the rest.

Here’s the smoking gun from The Intercept:
“The evidence that ties the ShadowBrokers dump to the NSA comes in an agency manual for implanting malware, classified top secret, provided by Snowden, and not previously available to the public. The draft manual instructs NSA operators to track their use of one malware program using a specific 16-character string, “ace02468bdf13579.” That exact same string appears throughout the ShadowBrokers leak in code associated with the same program, SECONDDATE.”

In other words, the string also appeared in 14 different files leaked as part of the ShadowBrokers data dump, including one file labelled SecondDate-3021.exe.
The tool allows the NSA to carry out “man-in-the-middle” attacks against targeted computers to interrupt traffic on a network and redirect web requests to the NSA, according to an internal NSA presentation from the Snowden trove.
While the NSA has not commented on the ShadowBrokers’ claims, software manufacturers like Cisco Systems Inc. and Fortinet Inc. in separate announcements earlier this week, said that some of the ShadowBrokers’ leaked codes are a threat to their products, lending credibility to the notion that the NSA exploits stolen by the hackers are legitimate.
It is still not clear how the data was leaked, and who exactly leaked it. However, many experts believe that Russia could be behind the high-profile breach. Snowden earlier this week had speculated that the leak could be a warning from Russia, saying “the hack of an NSA malware staging server is not unprecedented, but the publication of the take is.”

“Circumstantial evidence and conventional wisdom indicate Russian responsibility,” Snowden wrote in a series of tweets on August 16. “This leak is likely a warning that someone can provide US responsibility for any attacks that originated from the malware server. That could have significant foreign policy consequences. Particularly if any of those operations targeted US allies. Particularly if any of those operations targeted elections.”

Bill Gates: The Richest Man With Net Worth $90 Billion

 
Bill Gates, the world’s richest person, hit an all-time high of $90 billion on Friday, when his net worth hit $90 billion. Thanks to gains in public holdings including Canadian National Railway Company and Ecolab Inc., reports Bloomberg. At $90 billion, the Microsoft Corp. co-founder’s net worth is equal to 0.5% of U.S. total GDP (gross domestic product), and slightly larger than the entire GDP of Slovakia. In March, Bloomberg had listed his net worth at $83.3 billion.
According to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, the Microsoft founder’s fortune is now $13.5 billion bigger than that of the world’s second-wealthiest person, the Spanish founder of the retailer Zara, who is worth an estimated $76 billion, according to Forbes.
Wealth X, a wealth-tracking website in January had pegged Gates’ net worth at $87.4 billion; Forbes has him at $78.6 billion. Irrespective of this, Gates is constantly ranked the world’s richest man, and $90 billion is a new record.

Gate’s friend and investor Warren Buffett also tops the lists on a regular basis. Earlier this month, the Oracle of Omaha was listed by Wealth X with a net worth of $65.7 billion. On the other hand, Billionaire Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump’s net worth is pegged at $4.5 billion.
In 2010, Gates and Buffett started what’s called “The Giving Pledge,” a group of extremely wealthy individuals who have vowed to give away at least half of their wealth to charities. Some 154 billionaires around the world have joined the pledge, including Elon Musk, Sheryl Sandberg, and Larry Ellison since the launch of the initiative.

                             NSA GETS HACKED!

It seems that the NSA has been hacked. This is being speculated after a group of hackers going by the name “The Shadow Brokers” has claimed to breach an NSA-controlled hacking organization.

The hacking group has  leaked some private hacking tools and exploits. The hackers are also asking for 1 million bitcoin (about $568 million) in an auction to release all the files.

The incident took place on August 13 when The Shadow Brokers released files on GitHub. These hackers claim to have penetrated the Equation Group, a hacking group that’s broadly assumed to be the NSA.
A sample of these stolen files also poses a similarity with NSA’s hacking operations revealed in the Snowden leaks. The names of some common tools in both dumps are “BANANAGLEE” or “EPICBANANA.”
The dumped files contain installations scripts, exploits targeted to some specific firewalls and routers, and c&c server configurations.
 elow is a part of the message by hackers:

How much you pay for enemies cyber weapons? Not malware you find in networks. Both sides, RAT + LP, full state sponsor tool set? We find cyber weapons made by creators of stuxnet, duqu, flame. Kaspersky calls Equation Group. We follow Equation Group traffic. We find Equation Group source range. We hack Equation Group. We find many many Equation Group cyber weapons. You see pictures. We give you some Equation Group files free, you see. This is good proof no? You enjoy!!! You break many things. You find many intrusions. You write many words. But not all, we are auction the best files.

The shutting down of Kickass Torrents and Torrentz.eu had broken a million hearts worldwide when they both were banned within a span of two weeks. However, now torrent users have something to cheer about.
All Torrentz users were left with a message on the home page reading, “Torrentz was a free, fast and powerful meta-search engine combining results from dozens of search engines. If you try to search a torrent on the available search bar, it still displays a goodbye message which says “Torrentz will always love you. Farewell.”
Apparently, Torrentz is back but in a different avatar. A clone site of the world’s largest meta-data search engine has made its way online to continue the legacy of the original website.

The new website carries the url Torrentz2.eu, and looks the same as Torrentz.eu on its homepage. “Torrentz2.eu is a clone of Torrentz, a free, fast and powerful meta-search engine combining results from dozens of search engines,” the clone says on its website. It also says: “We will always love you Torrentz. Goodbye.” However, the only big noticeable difference is the absence of the white space on both sides of the new website. It is assumed that the primary job of torrentz2.eu is to keep the spirit of torrentz.eu alive.
Launched on 15 July 2003, Torrentz.eu which had millions of visitors per day went to become one of the leading torrenting websites for downloaders worldwide. Like other torrent websites, Torrentz.eu did not host its own torrents/links. It was more of a torrent aggregator and a search engine that was used to index torrents from other popular torrent sites such as Kickass Torrents, The Pirate Bay, ExtraTorrent etc. You could enter your query and search for relevant content from numerous other websites. However, after being in service for more than 13 years, the popular site announced its farewell and that too without a warning.

However, the arrival of Torrentz.eu has brought joy for the torrent users. We will have to wait and watch if the website continues to exist and if yes, how.

Popular mirror of KickassTorrents, KAT.am is a scam, stay away from it

Soon after the arrest of KickassTorrents alleged founder and the seizure of all KickassTorrents domains, many torrent websites sprang up to fill the popular KickassTorrents niche. The business opportunity for filling the KickassTorrents void was huge as its main domain Kat.cr enjoyed unprecedented popularity and was numero uno in terms of popularity among the torrenting community.
Once such website was a KickassTorrents mirror having a domain Kat.am. The people behind KAT.am were among the first to claim that they were a replacement for the dead and buried Kat.cr. Even though it misleadingly claimed to have a copy of KAT’s database, the torrent community, and world media made Kat.am popular.
However, the MPAA moved against the domain and had it suspended for featuring pirated content. After being under suspension for a week or so, now the site is back again but in a scammy avatar. After a brief suspension, the registry re-released the domain name for registration, allowing scammers to pick it up. While the site still appears to be a mirror, it asks people to sign up for an account with a credit card if they want to download something.

If you are a torrents fan and visit the Kat.am website now you will be greeted by the familiar KickassTorrents like user interface. The real fun or scam will begin once you try to download any torrent. Users who try to download something will be prompted to register a ‘free’ account.
“Free Account Required. You must create a Free Account to access KickassTorrents,” the popup notification reads.

The signup page redirects to a scammy portal, and requires people to enter their credit card details if they want a free trial.Do remember that the new avatar of Kat.am is a scam and has nothing to do with the original KickassTorrents site, and has all the signs of a classic pay to download scam.

KickassTorrents is dead, here are top 5 Torrent site alternatives to that was once world’s most popular torrent website

With the demise of KickassTorrents the search for alternate torrent websites has already begun.

Following the shut down of kickassTorrents after its alleged founder Artem Vaulin got arrested in Poland and an order given by a federal court in Chicago which led to the seizure of all official KAT domain names including kickasstorrents.com, kastatic.com, thekat.tv, kat.cr, kickass.to, kat.ph and kickass.cr. The torrent community has now come in need of finding top alternatives to KickassTorrents aka KAT.
Since KickassTorrents has lost its position forever after its deadly demise, Torrentz has taken its place to top the list of the top most popular torrent websites of 2016
Below is the top 5 torrent site alternatives to the KickassTorrents based on various traffic reports and stats. The ranking is listed in order of the torrent websites popularity on Alexa.

Top 5 Most Popular Torrent Alternatives To KickassTorrents
1. Torrentz  (Alexa rank-188) / Most popular alternative to KickassTorrents

Torrentz has been the top BitTorrent meta-search engine for many years, unlike other torrent websites it does not have any torrent or magnet links hosted on it instead it directs users to proper search results from other torrent websites.
While Torrentz started this year with ranking at 3rd in the list of most popular torrent websites it took over the rankings to beat The Pirate Bay and now has topped the chart after the demise of KickassTorrents.
2. The Pirate Bay (Alexa rank-329) / Most popular alternative to KickassTorrents
The Pirate Bay started its journey long back in 2003 and since then has faced several ups and downs with its co-founders getting arrested and facing lawsuits worth in millions of $. It made a comeback of sorts after the Swedish police raided its data center in Nacka and arrested one of the admins in 2014. The Pirate Bay is popularly known as HYDRA due to its various domains. It  has switched several domains time to time to avoid the authorities. Currently, it is using its original .org domain.

3. ExtraTorrent (Alexa rank-449) / Most popular alternative to KickassTorrents
ExtraTorrent is well-known torrent website with its website design and interface making it easier to search for the content with proper category wise listing. ExtraTorrent has maintained its 3rd position in the list of top most popular torrent websites, starting from 2015. this site is also the home of the most popular torrent release groups including ETTV and ETRG release groups.
4. YTS aka YIFY (Alexa rank-690) / Most popular alternative to Kickasstorrents
yts.ag is not the original YTS or YIFY group. After the demise of original YIFY/YTS this website took its place and since it has gained lots of popularity with its unique style website look.
5. RarBG (Alexa rank-768) / Most popular alternative to KickassTorrents
Founded in 2008, RarBG gained quick popularity and provides torrent files and magnet links to facilitate p-p  file sharing, the site has been blocked by UK, Saudi Arabia, Denmark, Portugal and several other countries though has managed to make it to 5th rank in top most popular torrent websites.