What is the New Copyright Alert System and How Does it Affect You?

What is the New Copyright Alert System and How Does it Affect You?

The new Copyright Alert System, also known as the “Six Strikes” system, marks the beginning of ISPs in the USA attempting to police their subscribers’ Internet usage. The “punishments” include increasingly harsh alerts, bandwidth throttling, and restricting browsing activity.
Now that the dust has begun to settle, let’s take a look at exactly what ISPs are doing and what this means for you.

What is the New Copyright Alert System?

The Copyright Alert System has been three years in the making. After several delays, Internet service providers began rolling it out to their customers in February 2013.
The Copyright Alert System is not a government-mandated program. It’s a private project organized by the “Center for Copyright Information,” whose members include the MPAA, RIAA, Comcast, Time Warner Cable, Cablevision, AT&T, and Verizon.
The Center for Copyright Information explains the new Copyright Alert System as an “educational” program targeted at casual downloaders. The goal is ostensibly to educate Americans about legal, approved ways of accessing content and discourage pirating it. The CCI explains their system in a YouTube video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQTONXs_N-A

Monitoring Infringing BitTorrent Swarms

BitTorrent itself doesn’t provide any privacy. As a result of the way BitTorrent works, everyone downloading a file from BitTorrent is also uploading pieces of the same file to other downloaders. An organization named MarkMonitor monitors people downloading infringing content from public BitTorrent trackers.

More specifically, MarkMonitor connects to torrents containing known-infringing content located on public BitTorrent trackers, such as the ever-popular Pirate Bay. MarkMonitor attempts to download the infringing content from other peers in the swarm and, if it manages to download pieces of the content successfully, it passes along the IP address to the user’s Internet service provider. The ISP is then responsible for notifying the subscriber.

At the moment, it appears that ISPs are not employing deep packet inspection or other technologies to find pirated content. The Copyright Alert System, as it stands, is targeted solely against people downloading infringing content located on public BitTorrent trackers.

Copyright Alerts

When a participating ISP receives information about an infringement from MarkMonitor, they will pass on a warning to their customer. Warning messages may be in the form of emails to a registered email address and pop-up alerts embedded in websites. In other words, participating ISPs will modify HTTP traffic, modifying web pages you request and inserting notification alerts.

This system has been branded “Six Strikes” because subscribers will receive up to six alerts, each with escalating seriousness and consequences.

First and Second Alerts: Subscribers will receive an alert with information on how to prevent further infringing activity.

Third and Fourth Alerts: Subscribers will receive an alert, but will have to click a confirmation button to acknowledge they received the alert.Fifth Alert: ISPs may use “mitigation measures” against the subscriber. A subscriber’s Internet speeds may be temporarily reduced or they may be redirected to a special informational page, preventing them from accessing other websites until they contact their ISP to discuss the matter. The exact mitigation measures depend on the ISP. Different ISPs will have different policies.

Sixth Alert: ISPs must enact “mitigation measures” if they have not already done so.

Should you disagree with an alert you receive, you can appeal an alert within 14 days of receiving it. There is a fee of $35 for each appeal, but you will receive the money back if you win your appeal.

Unlike other systems, such as the similarly named “Three Strikes” law in France, infringers will not be disconnected from the Internet after the last strike. Users will not receive any further alerts after the sixth.Consequences, What Consequences?

Everyone knows that “you’re out” after three strikes, but what happens after six strikes? The answer, which may surprise you, is nothing at all.
As Jill Lesser, executive directory of the CCI, explained in an interview:

“We hope that by the time people get to alerts number five or six, they will stop. Once they’ve been mitigated, they’ve received several alerts, we’re just not gonna send them any more alerts because they’re not the kind of customer that we’re going to reach with this program.”

After the sixth alert, subscribers will not receive any further alerts. However, they may still be sued by the copyright owners. This is the same risk that existed before the Copyright Alert System came into place.

The program is targeted at deterring “casual infringers” and leaves other types of infringers to be sued in the courts.

Only Some ISPs Are Participating

As we have already mentioned, “Six Strikes” is not a law like the “Three Strikes” law in France. It’s a private program that ISPs are voluntarily entering into with organizations such as the RIAA and MPAA. At this time, only five ISPs are participating: AT&T, Cablevision, Comcast, Time Warner Cable, and Verizon.

Cox, Charter, CenturyLink, Sonic.net, and many small and medium-size ISPs, are not participating. However, other ISPs may join the program in the future.

What The Program Doesn’t Target

While the system is branded as a “Copyright Alert System,” it actually only targets people downloading infringing content from public BitTorrent trackers. Both hardcore pirates and casual infringers will be able to avoid this system. The following types of copyright infringement are not targeted at the moment:

Watching TV shows and movies uploaded to YouTube and other video sites by unauthorized users.

Downloading copyrighted content directly from “file locker”-type websites, not peer-to-peer networks.

Using other types of peer-to-peer networks, not BitTorrent.

Downloading torrents from private BitTorrent trackers.

Using VPNs to access public, infringing torrents.

However, the program may target other types of unauthorized downloading in the future.

What About Businesses?

Businesses on business-grade Internet connections will not be targeted by the Copyright Alert System. A business offering public Wi-Fi will not see alerts because some of its customers downloaded unauthorized material.

However, small businesses on consumer-grade Internet connections will see alerts. If a business is offering public Wi-Fi using a residential connection, it may receive copyright alerts. ISPs would advise these businesses to upgrade to more expensive connections intended for businesses.

At the moment, the system’s bark is worse than its bite. It only targets one specific type of infringing traffic and doesn’t result in very harsh penalties. However, over time, the system could be adapted to monitor subscribers’ Internet traffic for other types of infringing downloads and hand out harsher penalties.

One thing’s for sure – for people in the USA, downloading unauthorized content from public BitTorrent trackers just became an even worse idea.

IT- Executive jobs in Bilaspur, Jodhpur ,GLITZ CINEMAS, Jodhpur

IT- Executive jobs in Bilaspur, Jodhpur
Stargaze Entertainment Pvt. Ltd.
Experience: 1 - 3 Years
Compensation: Not Mentioned
Industry Type: Retail
Role: Operations Mgr
Openings: 1
Location: Bilaspur, Jodhpur
Education: UG - Any Graduate - Any Specialization PG - Any PG Course - Any Specialization
Functional Area: ITES / BPO / KPO / Customer Service / Operations
Posted On: 30th Jul 2013
Stargaze Entertainment (P) Ltd is a part of the Network 18 group and operates multiplexes under
 the brand Glitz Cinemas at various locations in India. It is one of the latest entrants to the multiplex
 industry and plans to grow to 35 screens by March
Manage a local area network powered by a server and comprising 2030 terminals and ensuring 100% uptime.
Routine monitoring of Serverrsquo;s performance by checking Event Logs, Hardware Logs etc & daily health
checks of Servers.Routine monitoring
GLITZ CINEMAS, Jodhpur
Blue City Mall, Circuit House Road,
Jodhpur

Wipro is Hiring for IT Hardware & Networking Profiles with good Salary (0-1 yrs.) jobs in Delhi/NCR,

Wipro is Hiring for IT Hardware & Networking Profiles with good Salary (0-1 yrs.) jobs in Delhi/NCR, Gurgaon, Noida, Delhi
Infotec Network Systems
WIPRO (IT Support for Delhi/NCR) for HELPDESK COORDINATOR / DESKTOP Support Level 0 / BACKOFFICE / OPERATION EXECUTIVE STIPEND 5k6k (Payrolls of INS eSolutions Ltd.)

 Service Agreement 12 months (after which the salary will be increased)
Shifts timings Fixed DAY shifts (depending on the work location) otherwise it can be Evening
 shifts as well Week offs Can get 12 offs in a week
(depending on the work location) it can be fixed offs as well
 Any Graduate (Even B.E/B.Tech are eligible) /
 Full time Diploma Holder / Post Graduate can apply (with 50% throughout studies in 10th, 12th and graduation) with no gap of more than 1 year in studies Should
have done a certification course for Hardware & Networking
Any experience / Fresher Max Age
 No matter COMMUNICATION SKILLS should be GOOD*
 IF INTERESTED THEN email your RESUME
at hrd7@infotecindia.com
 (MENTION YOUR PERCENTAGE OF 10th, 12th and Graduation)
 AND AFTER THEN CALL TO
GYAN 01140520944 OR
 RANJANA 9818224060

Trainee - Desktop Support - UID Project ( Male Candidate) by IAP Company Pvt Ltd. in Gurgaon who can relocate to Gurgaon or near by area.

Trainee - Desktop Support - UID Project ( Male Candidate)
by IAP Company Pvt Ltd. in Gurgaon
Experience: 0 to 1 yrs.  |  Opening(s): 3 Posted on: 29 Jul

We are looking for freshers who have got training in Hardware & Desktop Support and are willing to start their career with a big IT Company.

If you have a work experience in Technical Support in UIDAI AADHAAR project for not more than 6 months to 1 year

and If you  are a Fresh graduate with diploma in hardware & desktop support, please come for an interview at 11 AM on 30th Jul on address as written below.  Those who do not carry experience in UID may also come provided they are ready to work in a project specific role.

This is a desktop support job. This job involves basic level trouble shooting, LAN etc.

We need local candidate or any candidate who can relocate to Gurgaon or near by area.

Address: IAP Company Pvt. Ltd. 3rd, Floor, Above Mc Donalds Near Columbia Hospital Palam Vihar, Gurgaon
Contact Details
Recruiter Name:Sachin Chaudhary
Contact Company:IAP Company Ltd
Telephone:+91-124-4133500
Reference Id:Technical Support Junior_UIDAI

Walk-in For Engineer-hardware/field for Nadiad/ 0.5-2yrs exp. by Accel Frontline Limited in Ahmedabad

Walk-in For Engineer-hardware/field for Nadiad/ 0.5-2yrs exp.
by Accel Frontline Limited in Ahmedabad
Experience: 0 to 2 yrs.  |  Opening(s): 2 Posted on: 29 Jul

* Looking for candidate having 6month+ years of experience in IT Hardware repair and maintenance.
* Have 3 years Diploma or Degree from recognized University.
* Candidate must be interested to work in field/site.
* Engineer should have knowledge and working experience in Desktop support engineer related activities like installation and configuration of PC, Antivirus, Outlook or Lotus notes, OS, diff. software and other hardware peripherals.
* Local candidates of Nadiad and the candidates who are interested to work in Nadiad and Ahdmedabad location need to apply.


1. Identify the Hardware or any other Problem and trouble shooting.
2. Knowledge of Networking to handle local LAN & WAN Installation & Maintenance.
3. Install/ Support/ Maintain/ Trouble shoot various IT Hardware ( Desktop, Laptop, Peripherals)
4. Knowledge of Operating system Win98/2000/Xp./Vista/Win Server 2003
5. Provide Support for Windows OS and standard Office Automation Software.
6. OS level Trouble Shooting and Admin.
7. Knowledge of Email Clients like Lotus notes and Outlook.
8. Solve Customer Technical Issues.
9. Resolution of user calls related to Desktop / Laptop (day to day problem fixing)
10. Update anti-virus tools periodically on client machines.
11. Installation / Reconfiguration / Re-installation of XP Operating System from the original media.
12. To initiate escalation process if required to resolve the problem.

Interested Candidates may come for Walk-In Interview at our Office between 11:00AM To 6:00 PM from 30th July to 5th  Aug 2013.



Contact Details
Recruiter Name:HR
Contact Company:Accel Frontline Limited
Address: 502, Shanti Arcade, Near AEC crossing, 132ft. Ring Road, Naranpura, ,Gujarat,India
Email Address:nand.kishor@accelfrontline.in
Telephone:079-40080020

Desktop & Network Engineer by SRS Limited in Faridabad

Desktop & Network Engineer
by SRS Limited in Faridabad
Experience: 1 to 3 yrs.  |  Opening(s): 2
 Provide technical support in house IT problems.
Planning, designing and implementation of IP networks Configuration and troubleshooting
Assembling & Disassembling of PC.
Installation of all types of windows like 98,2000,2003,XP,
Repairing & Manage Network Printer, Inkjet Printers & Laser Printers
Installing and configuring new hardware and software.
Configuring, Installation Microsoft Outlook
Contact Details
Recruiter Name:taruna
Contact Company:SRS Limited

Urgent Opening-senior Desktop Engineer for anand(ahmedabad) Location

Urgent Opening-senior Desktop Engineer for Sanand(ahmedabad) Location
by PCS Technology Ltd. in Sanand
Experience: 3 to 5 yrs. Posted on: 29 Jul

We are currently looking for Sr Desktop Engineer for Sanand Location

Min 4 years experience as a Desktop Engineer and Senior Desktop
Knowledge of OS (XP, Win7) & Standard Application Installation, configuration & Troubleshooting
Good Knowledge of Hardware Installation & Troubleshooting
Knowledge Network Printer Installation, Configuration & troubleshooting
Microsoft Outlook Installation, configuration and Troubleshooting
Knowledge of AV installation & Troubleshooting (Macfee Preferred)
Knowledge of Patches installation User End (from SCCM / WSUS Server)
Knowledge of IMAC

Monthly Salary 15K in hand

Education - Any Graduate /  Engineering Diploma from Valid University is MUST

Communication skill - Good

if your profile match the above requirement kindly email your resume at the earliest to sheetal.chavan@pcstech.com

Pls let us know below details:

Year of experience :
Current CTC:
Expected CTC :
Notice Period :
 Contact Details
Recruiter Name:Percy K. Daver
Contact Company:PCS Technology Ltd
PCS Technology Ltd.

1,Yogi Krupa Apartment
Opp- Gosa Society
Jay Ambay Nagar ,
Drive - In Road
Near - UDGAM School, Thaltej
Ahmedabad - 380 054
Gujarat - India
Tel. : 91 - 79 - 26859032 / 09558800191

Hiring @ Sr. Desktop Support Engineers 2-5 Yrs / Jaipur Microland Limited in Jaipur

Hiring @ Sr. Desktop Support Engineers 2-5 Yrs / Jaipur
by Microland Limited in Jaipur
Experience: 2 to 5 yrs. Posted on: 29 Jul

Candidate should be comfortable for 24*7 shifts.
-Candidate should be good in terms of communication as its for one of the international customer.
-Candidate should be a graduate i.e-10+2+3 or 10+2+4 or 10+3 from affiliated university.
-Candidate should have all the set of documents for the companys worked-Offer letter, salary slip, and Experience letter.

Job Description:

-Good Communication Skills
- Should be open to work in 24*7 environments
-Hands on experience in desktop support with good experience on Outlook/lotus note
- Should perform user account creation, deletion, and configuration.
-Basic troubleshooting experience needed along with knowledge on the Operating System.
-Configuring and Trouble shooting of MS OUTLOOK/lotus note-To solve the technical problems remotely.
-Knowledge of Software Installation.
-Troubleshooting the Hardware and Software problems.

Contact Details
Contact Company:Microland Limited
Telephone:01246754005

Urgent requirement for Desktop Support Engineer in Belapur Location 10k per month BCA, BE, B TECH

Desktop Support Engineer- Belapur
by Progressive Infotech Pvt Ltd. in Mumbai, Mumbai Suburbs, Navi Mumbai, Thane
Experience: 1 to 4 yrs.  |  Opening(s): 5 Posted on: 29 Jul

Urgent requirement for Desktop Support Engineer in Belapur Location

Female candidates not required

Offered salary - 10k per month

Interested candidates can come for interview on  30th, 31st July,  1st Aug, 2nd Aug between 9 am to 5 pm at below address with your updated resume:

Progressive Infotech Pvt Ltd.,
Unit No.120, B Wing, 1st Floor,
Pranik Chambers, Sakinaka,
Andheri (E), Mumbai - 400 072.
Contact- Pooja
(022-61173921)
Landmark: Sakinaka Signal / Sakinaka Bus Stop

Job Responsibilities:
Desktop engineer
Exp- 1+ Year

Qualification- BCA,  BE, B TECH

L1 Resource on Desktop
Good Communication
Good Personality / Presentability
Hardware and Network trouble shooting
OS (MS Platform)
LAN Networking (Client Side)
Client side Mail System (Outlook)
MS Office and other industry standard applications.

How to See if Your Hard Drive is Dying

How to See if Your Hard Drive is Dying

Hard drives use S.M.A.R.T. (Self-Monitoring, Analysis, and Reporting Technology) to gauge their own reliability and determine if they’re failing. You can view your hard drive’s S.M.A.R.T. data and see if it has started to develop problems.

Unfortunately, Windows doesn’t have an easy-to-use built-in tool that shows your hard disk’s S.M.A.R.T. data. We will need a third-party tool to view this information, though there is a way to check your S.M.A.R.T. status from the command prompt.

Use CrystalDiskInfo
CrystalDiskInfo is an easy-to-use, open-source program that can quickly display the S.M.A.R.T. status reported by your hard drive in Windows. You can download it for free – however, be sure to uncheck the browser widget when installing it.

Once it is installed, all you have to do is launch the CrystalDiskInfo application to view the S.M.A.R.T. status information for your hard drives. If everything is working properly, you should see the status Good displayed.

CrystalDiskInfo also displays other information about your hard drive, including its current temperature and hardware specifications. If there is a problem, you can identify what exactly is wrong with the hard drive.

If you are particularly paranoid, you can enable the Function –> Resident (to keep CrystalDiskInfo running in your system tray) and Function –> Startup (to have CrystalDiskInfo automatically start with your computer) options to leave CrystalDiskInfo always running in the background. If your S.M.A.R.T. status changes, CrystalDiskInfo will pop up and alert you.Checking S.M.A.R.T. 

Without Third-Party Tools

To do a quick S.M.A.R.T. check without installing any third-party software, you can use a few commands included with Windows. First, open a Command Prompt window. (Press the Windows key, type Command Prompt, and press Enter.)
In the Command Prompt window, type the following commands, pressing Enter after each:

wmic

diskdrive get status

If everything is working properly, you should see the status OK displayed. Other statuses can indicate problems or errors retrieving S.M.A.R.T. information.

Help, My Hard Drive Is Dying!

If you have used either of these tools – or another reputable program – and have seen an error, this does not mean your hard drive is going to fail immediately. However, if there’s a S.M.A.R.T. error, you should assume that your hard drive is in the process of failing. 

A complete failure could come in a few minutes, a few months, or – in some cases — even a few years. However long it takes, you should not trust the hard drive with your data in the meantime.

Ensure you have up-to-date backups of all your files stored on another media, such as an external hard drive or burned discs. You should always have up-to-date backups anyway, as hard drives can fail at any time.

With your files properly backed up, you should look into replacing your hard drive as soon as possible. A hard drive that fails a S.M.A.R.T. test should not be considered reliable. Even if your hard drive doesn’t die completely, it could corrupt portions of your data.

Of course, hardware isn’t perfect – hard drives can fail without any S.M.A.R.T. warnings. However, S.M.A.R.T. often gives you some advance warning when your hard drive is starting to fail.

Urgent Hiring For"field Engineer" Integrated Personnel Services Pvt Ltd hiring for Client of Ipspl in Delhi/NCR, Ambala, Jaipur

Urgent Hiring For"field Engineer"

Integrated Personnel Services Pvt Ltd hiring for Client of Ipspl in Delhi/NCR, Ambala, Jaipur

Experience: 1 to 2 yrs. | 

Salary: INR 80,000 - 1,25,000 P.A | 

 Opening(s):  6

Job Description

Job title -  Field Engineer

Experience -  1 year +

Education - Three years Polytechnic Diploma/B.SC./B.E/ B.Tech and B.A./B.Com with Hardware & Networking Diploma
Skills set;

1) Exposure on PCs (Desktop & Windows support)
2) Printers and Windows 2000 Server OS
3) LAN and WAN trouble shooting
4) Basic knowledge of Networking

CANDIDATE SHOULD BE WILLING TO TRAVEL

Job Location- Delhi-NCR.,Ambala, Jaipur

Salary - 10 K CTC (will depend on current salary & experience - 20 to 25% hike).

If the above profile matches you do send me your resume on the details given below;

shashank.tripathi@ipsgroup.co.in

011435356708

Salary:  INR 80,000 - 1,25,000 P.A

Industry:    IT-Hardware & Networking

Functional Area:  IT Hardware, Technical Support, Telecom Engineering

Role Category:  Technical Support

Role:   Customer Support Engineer/Technician

Keyskills:

Windows & Desktop Lan & Wan Networking

Desired Candidate Profile

Please refer to the Job description above

Company Profile

Integrated Personnel Services Pvt LtdClient of IPSPL
Contact DetailsRecruiter Name:
Mr Shashank TripathiTelephone:
01143536708

How To Create a Customized your own Windows 7 Installation Disc With Integrated Updates.

How To Create a Customized Windows 7 Installation Disc With Integrated Updates

Do you want to save time when installing Windows 7? You can create a customized installation disc and have it perform an installation without asking you questions, integrate updates and drivers, tweak Windows, and remove Windows components.

We’ll be using  RT Se7en Lite  for this – if you’ve used nLite with Windows XP or vLite with Windows Vista in the past, it works similarly. RT Se7en Lite is a sort of vLite or nLite for Windows 7.

What You’ll Need

To do this, you’ll need Windows 7 installed on your computer. You’ll also need to download and install the Windows Automated Installation Kit (WAIK) for Windows 7 from Microsoft – RT Se7en Lite is a more user friendly frontend to WAIK.

WAIK is 1.7 GB, so the download may take a while if you have a slow Internet connection. After downloading it, extract it with a file extraction program such as 7-Zip.

Run the StartCD.exe file, select Windows AIK Setup, and follow the instructions on your screen to install Windows AIK.

You’ll also need a Windows 7 installation source – either a physical disc or ISO file.

Next, download and install RT Se7en Lite from here – it’s free and donation-supported. 

Download the appropriate version for your version of Windows — x86 if you’re using a 32-bit version of Windows or x64 if you’re using a 64-bit edition.

Using RT Se7en Lite

First, click the Browse button and provide your Windows 7 files – if you have an ISO file on your hard drive, click Select ISO file and navigate to it. If you have a Windows disc, insert the disk, click Select OS path, and navigate to the disc.

If you provide an ISO, you’ll have to specify an extraction path where the ISO’s files will be extracted to – you’ll need several gigabytes of space on your hard disk for this.

The files will be automatically extracted after you provide your ISO.

After selecting the edition of Windows 7 you’re customizing, RT Se7en Lite will load the image. If you have a Windows 7 disc without Service Pack 1 integrated, click the Slipstream Service Pack option in the “Select an image to configure” window and you’ll be able to integrate SP1.

Click over to the Task pane and select the tasks you want to perform after the image is loaded. You can manually check the check boxes or select a preset. Selecting one of the check boxes will activate the corresponding configuration pane at the left side of the window.

The integration pane allows you to integrate Windows updates, drivers, language packs, and even third-party applications into your installation disc. To integrate updates, you’ll have to download their installer files and load them into RT Seven Lite with the Add button.

On the Features Removal or Components tab, you can permanently remove components from your Windows installation disc and control which Windows features are installed by default. For example, you can remove the included games from your Windows installer disc, or force Windows to install the IIS web server by default.

The Tweaks tab allows you to customize the default settings for the Windows Control Panel, Desktop, Explorer, and a variety of other Windows components. You can even add custom registry settings to tweak other settings that aren’t present in the list.

The Unattended section allows you to create an unattended installation disc – you provide answers to installation questions beforehand and Windows will install without asking you these questions during the installation process.

For example, you can enter your product key ahead of time so Windows won’t ask you for it. The other tabs allow you to control other settings – for example, selecting the hard disks that Windows will install on. If you complete enough of these settings, Windows will install automatically without asking you any questions during the installation, allowing you to perform an unattended Windows installation.

The Customization pane allows you to add custom screensavers, wallpapers, themes, documents, and even logon screens to your Windows 7 disc.

On the ISO Bootable pane, you can create a ISO image from your customized installation disc. You can also burn it to a DVD or copy it to a bootable USB drive.

RT Se7en Lite’s developers recommend booting your custom Windows 7 image in a virtual machine and installing it in the virtual machine before you use it on a physical computer, just to make sure everything is working properly.

You can use VirtualBox or VMware Player to do this – both are free.

Brute-Force Attacks Explained: How All Encryption is Vulnerable

Brute-Force Attacks Explained: How All Encryption is Vulnerable

Brute-force attacks are fairly simple to understand, but difficult to protect against. Encryption is math, and as computers become faster at math, they become faster at trying all the solutions and seeing which one fits.

These attacks can be used against any type of encryption, with varying degrees of success. Brute-force attacks become faster and more effective with each passing day as newer, faster computer hardware is released.

Brute-Force Basics

Brute-force attacks are simple to understand. An attacker has an encrypted file — say, your LastPass or KeePass password database. They know that this file contains data they want to see, and they know that there’s an encryption key that unlocks it. To decrypt it, they can begin to try every single possible password and see if that results in a decrypted file.

They do this automatically with a computer program, so the speed at which someone can brute-force encryption increases as available computer hardware becomes faster and faster, capable of doing more calculations per second. The brute-force attack would likely start at one-digit passwords before moving to two-digit passwords and so on, trying all possible combinations until one works.

A “dictionary attack” is similar and tries words in a dictionary — or a list of common passwords — instead of all possible passwords. This can be very effective, as many people use such weak and common passwords.Why Attackers Can’t Brute-Force Web Services

There’s a difference between online and offline brute-force attacks. For example, if an attacker wants to brute-force their way into your Gmail account, they can begin to try every single possible password — but Google will quickly cut them off. Services that provide access to such accounts will throttle access attempts and ban IP addresses that attempt to log in so many times. Thus, an attack against an online service wouldn’t work too well because very few attempts can be made before the attack would be halted.

For example, after a few failed login attempts, Gmail will show you a CATPCHA image to verify you aren’t a computer automatically trying passwords. They’ll likely stop your login attempts completely if you managed to continue for long enough.

On the other hand, let’s say an attacker snagged an encrypted file from your computer or managed to compromise an online service and download such encrypted files. The attacker now has the encrypted data on their own hardware and can try as many passwords as they want at their leisure. If they have access to the encrypted data, there’s no way to prevent them from trying a large number of passwords in a short period of time. Even if you’re using strong encryption, it’s to your benefit to keep your data safe and ensure others can’t access it.

Hashing

Strong hashing algorithms can slow down brute-force attacks. Essentially, hashing algorithms perform additional mathematical work on a password before storing a value derived from the password on disk. If a slower hashing algorithm is used, it will require thousands of times as much mathematical work to try each password and dramatically slow down brute-force attacks. However, the more work required, the more work a server or other computer has to do each time as user logs in with their password. Software must balance resilience against brute-force attacks with resource usage.

Brute-Force Speed

Speed all depends on hardware. Intelligence agencies may build specialized hardware just for brute-force attacks, just as Bitcoin miners build their own specialized hardware optimized for Bitcoin mining. When it comes to consumer hardware, the most effective type of hardware for brute-force attacks is a graphics card (GPU). As it’s easy to try many different encryption keys at once, many graphics cards running in parallel are ideal.

At the end of 2012, Ars Technica reported that a 25-GPU cluster could crack every Windows password under 8 characters in less than six hours. The NTLM algorithm Microsoft used just wasn’t resilient enough. 

However, when NTLM was created, it would have taken much longer to try all these passwords. This wasn’t considered enough of a threat for Microsoft to make the encryption stronger.

Speed is increasing, and in a few decades we may discover that even the strongest cryptographic algorithms and encryption keys we use today can be quickly cracked by quantum computers or whatever other hardware we’re using in the future.

Protecting Your Data From Brute-Force Attacks

There’s no way to protect yourself completely. It’s impossible to say just how fast computer hardware will get and whether any of the encryption algorithms we use today have weaknesses that will be discovered and exploited in the future. However, here are the basics:

Keep your encrypted data safe where attackers can’t get access to it. Once they have your data copied to their hardware, they can try brute-force attacks against it at their leisure.

If you run any service that accepts logins over the Internet, ensure that it limits login attempts and blocks people who attempt to log in with many different passwords in a short period of time. Server software is generally set to do this out of the box, as it’s a good security practice.Use strong encryption algorithms, such as SHA-512. Ensure you’re not using old encryption algorithms with known weaknesses that are easy to crack.

Use long, secure passwords. All the encryption technology in the world isn’t going to help if you’re using “password” or the ever-popular “hunter2″.

Brute-force attacks are something to be concerned about when protecting your data, choosing encryption algorithms, and selecting passwords. They’re also a reason to keep developing stronger cryptographic algorithms — encryption has to keep up with how fast it’s being rendered ineffective by new hardware.

How to Create a Test Lab So That You Can perform your windows practices without formating your system with virtual box...

How to Create a Test Lab So That You Can perform your windows practices without formating your system with virtual box...

you can just VirtualBox like we do to create virtual machines for all of your testing. Here’s how to do it.

You can even network multiple virtual machines together, so as long as you have a decent amount of RAM in your PC, you can fully test a scenario without messing with your PC’s settings at all. It’s a much safer way to learn!

Before we get started there are a few things that we will need:

A copy of VirtualBox which can be obtained here.A Windows 7 ISO which can be obtained here.A Windows Server 2008 R2 ISO which can be obtained here.

Setting Up Your Lab

The first thing we need to do is get VirtualBox installed, and since this is a next, next finish type of install we are confident you will be able to get it done in no time.

Once the installation is complete we are ready to create our first virtual machine.

Since we are going to have both clients and servers, we will call this one Windows 7 (Client) and select the Windows 7 operating system from the dropdown list, then click next.

Next you are going to want to assign the VM a decent amount of memory, the minimum is 512MB but since I have quite a lot in my PC I decided to give my VM 2GB instead. A safe bet is probably 1GB though.

At this point we still need to add a hard drive to our VM, so switch the radio button over to “Create a virtual hard drive now” then click create.

There are many types of virtual hard disks but the VDI option is just fine for our purposes.

Fixed size disks give slightly better performance from a HDD point of view and quite frankly we need all the performance we can get. So flip the radio over to the Fixed size option, then click next.

The minimum recommended space for Windows 7 is 25GB but if you have the extra space increasing it to 30GB doesn’t hurt.

Once VirtualBox has finished creating our drive we are good to go.

We still need to configure some settings though, so before you get too excited click on the Machine menu and select the Settings…. option.

When the settings dialog opens, switch over to the storage section, then click on the empty IDE controller which can be found on the right-hand side.

Now look even further to the right and click on the little icon of a CD, here you will want to choose to insert a virtual CD\DVD into the drive.

Finally we want to head over to the network section and change the network settings from NAT to Internal Network. This is very important. If you don’t do this, you can’t create a network just for your virtual machines to talk to each other.

Once you are done with all that you can go ahead and start the machine.

Once it has booted it will be just like any other Windows 7 installation. Now that we have a working virtual machine, you will want to go ahead and set up one or two more clients (running Windows 7)

Configuration

Press the Windows + R keyboard combination to open a run box on your virtual machine, then type ncpa.cpl and press enter.

Right click on your network adapter and open the properties.

Then select Internet Protocol Version 4 (TCP/IPv4) and click the properties button.

Now change the radio button option to allow a static IP address assignment, then set your IP to 192.168.1.1 and your subnet mask to 255.255.255.0 before clicking OK to apply the settings.
Note: For each virtual machine you bring on the network you will need to increment the last digit in the IP address by 1. That means your first virtual machine will be 192.168.1.1 and your second will be 192.168.1.2. The subnet mask must stay the same for all virtual machines.

You should now be able to ping any virtual machine from any other virtual machine.

That’s all there is to it.
Thanks...
Nase Technical Team

How to See What Web Sites Your Computer is Secretly Connecting To and slowing down your internet conection speed.

How to See What Web Sites Your Computer is Secretly Connecting To

Has your internet connection become slower than it should be? There may be a chance that you have some malware, spyware, or adware that is using your internet connection in the background without your knowledge. Here’s how to see what’s going on under the hood.

How to Check What Your Computer is Connecting To

So, how do you find out what the problem is? There is an easy method using the netstat command from a command prompt window. This works with Windows 7, Vista, and XP. If you’re still using XP, make sure you are running at least Service Pack 2.

We will use the netstat command to generate a list of everything that has made an internet connection in a specified amount of time. To use the netstat command, you must run the command prompt window as administrator. Open the Start menu and enter “cmd.exe” in the Search box. When the results display, right-click on cmd.exe and select Run as administrator from the popup menu.

If the User Account Control dialog box displays, click Yes to continue. Note: You may not see this dialog box, depending on your User Account Control settings.

At the command prompt, type the following command and press Enter.

netstat -abf 5 > activity.txt

The –a option shows all connections and listening ports, the –b option shows you what application is making the connection, and the –f option displays the full DNS name for each connection option for easier understanding of where the connections are being made to. You can also use the –n option if you wish to only display the IP address. The 5 option will poll every 5 seconds for connections to make it more easy to track what is going on, and the results are then piped into the activity.txt file.
Wait about two minutes and then press Ctrl + C to stop the recording of data.

Once you’ve finished recording data, you can simply open the activity.txt file in your favorite editor to see the results, or you can type activity.txt at the command line to open it in Notepad.

The resulting file will list all processes on your computer (browsers, IM clients, email programs, etc.) that have made an internet connection in the last two minutes, or however long you waited before pressing Ctrl + C. It also lists which processes connected to which websites.

If you see process names or website addresses with which you are not familiar, you can search for “what is (name of unknown process)” in Google and see what it is. It may be a system function you don’t know about or a function of one of your running programs. However, if it seems like a bad site, you can use Google again to find out how to get rid of it.

Using CurrPorts to Check What Your PC is Connecting To

You can also use a free tool, called CurrPorts, to display a list of all currently opened TCP/IP and UDP ports on your local computer. It is a portable program and doesn’t need to be installed. To use it, extract the .zip file you downloaded (see the link at the end of this article) and run cports.exe.

For each port that CurrPorts lists, information about the process that opened the port is displayed. You can select connections and close them, copy a port’s information to the clipboard or save it to an HTML file, an XML file, or a tab-delimited text file. You can reorder the columns displayed on the CurrPorts main window and in the files you save. To sort the list by a specific column, simply click on the header of that column.

CurrPorts runs under Windows NT, Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, Windows Server 2008, Windows Vista, and Windows 7. There is a separate download of CurrPorts for 64-bit versions of Windows. You can find more information about CurrPorts and how to use it on the website listed below.

Dow         download currports software link:    http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/cports.html.

                  Thanks...Happy Downloading.

                 Nase Technical Team..