Hasta La Gadget!

This week the folks at CyanogenMod, far and away the most popular 3rd party ROM development group, have revealed their first shot at ClockworkMod Recovery for Google Glass. This interface is one of the bare-bones first steps toward creating a slew of customized user interfaces for Google Glass, starting here with the Explorer Edition of the device. CyanogenMod developer Brint Kriebel (aka bekit) has been so kind as to provide us with some up-close photos of the software on his own Glass device, too.

Now before you get too pumped up about this situation, you should mind the fact that if you do unlock your Glass device, you’ll be voiding your warrantee provided by Google. This is the same for most devices on the market today running Android, so keep a weather eye when you’re hacking along.

What you’re seeing here is a screen rather similar to that which you’d see if you were working with ClockworkMod Recovery on an Android smartphone or tablet. Here with Glass, the user will be using the camera shutter to scroll through menus and the power button to select items inside Recovery – on a smartphone, this is done with a device’s volume buttons and power button.

Kriebel has tested several elements inside this version of Recovery, but notes that he’s not yet tested any installations – since none yet exist. Once developers begin to create odd packages for Glass and zip them up real nice, Recovery will be able to flash them to the device with a button tap.

I have successfully tested the following:
  access via adb (including Koush’s new adb backup)
  wipe data/factory reset
  mount/unmount partitions
  backup/restore
  auto disable of stock recovery re-flash
  auto root
– Kriebel (bekit)

Users wishing to work with this custom Recovery for Google Glass can head over to Brint Kriebel’s Google+ post to grab the link to the file image. If you’re feeling brave, let us know how it all goes – and if you’ve got any fabulous customized bits and pieces you’ve installed with Recovery, too!

Google Glass gains ClockworkMod Recovery for future hacks: have a peek! is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Reports have been surfacing for awhile now regarding hunger strikes at Guantanamo Bay by prisoners over indefinite imprisonment – without trial – which has resulted in force feeding. To show their support for the cause behind the hunger strikes, hacking collective Anonymous threatened to take Guantanamo down, prompting a shutdown of its wireless Internet network.

According to the Associated Press, the military issued a shutdown of the wireless network at the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, also blocking access to social media websites, including Twitter and Facebook, via the base’s computers. No cyberattacks have happened thus far; the shutdown was initiated merely as a precaution due to the posted threats.

The threats were made on May 6 via Anon Insiders, where Anonymous published a press release regarding “Operation Guantanamo.” According to the statement, May 18 represented the 100th day the prisoners had been on the hunger strike, the same time the hackers’ 3-day operation would take place. The public was called to initiate “twitterstorms, email bombs, and fax bombs” nonstop to show their support.

The press release also included numbers to the White House, U.S. Southern Command, and Department of Defense, urging the public to call the numbers and demand a change in conditions and eradication of the force-feedings, as well as demands that the Obama Administration close Guantanamo, as was the original plan. People were also asked to call their representatives and senators to petition for its closure.

It is worth noting the press release doesn’t say anything about hacking or cyberattacking the network, instead urging the public to bombard the powers that be with denouncements of the prison’s conditions, actions, and continued existence. As such, it has been pointed out on the Operation Guantanamo’s Twitter account that the base has taken itself offline, with the hacking collective not having to do anything, seemingly fulfilling the purpose it was assumed Anonymous sought to achieve.

There’s no word on when the network will be available again.

SOURCE: Associated Press

Anonymous operation sends Guantanamo’s wifi into shutdown is written by Brittany Hillen & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

In April, LulzSec members Ryan Ackroyd, Jake Davis, and Mustafa al-Bassam plead guilty to various charges in London for their roles in cyberattacks against Sony, the NHS, News International, and more. Today the three of them – plus Ryan Cleary – were sentenced in the same court, with all but one getting prison sentences. This follows other members who have already been sentenced, including Cody Kretsinger, who was known as Recursion.

Last month, 20-year-old Jake Davis, 26-year-old Ryan Ackroyd, and 18-year-old Mustafa al-Bassam plead guilty to charges of cyberattacking the NHS, News International, and Sony. On top of those, Ackroyd in particular also plead guilty to plotting attacks on other websites in addition to a computer hacking charge. Al-Bassam and Davis, in addition to the aforementioned, plead guilty to conspiring to attack various law enforcement agencies in both the US and UK.

While those three plead guilty last month, 21-year-old Ryan Cleary, who was also sentenced today, had already plead guilty in his own legal spat, which consisted of six various related charges. The guilty pleas were entered about two years after the attacks for which they were sentenced took place. Out of the four, Ackroyd had been the only to initially maintain his innocence.

Now that the sentencing is complete, we see that Cleary was given a 32-month prison sentence, Ackroyd a 30-month sentence, and Davis a 24-month sentence. Al-Bassam was the only one to side-step a prison sentence, instead receiving a 20-month suspended sentence because – though now an adult – he was only 16-years-old when he committed the cyberattacks, making him a minor. Instead, he will perform 300 hours of community service.

Crown Prosecution Service lawyer Andrew Hadik said: “The harm they caused was foreseeable, extensive and intended. Indeed, they boasted of how clever they were with a complete disregard for the impact their actions had on real people’s lives. This case should serve as a warning to other cybercriminals that they are not invincible.”

SOURCE: BBC News

LulzSec hackers sentenced in London court is written by Brittany Hillen & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Today at Google I/O the company held a session entitled “Voiding your Warranty” where employees demonstrated how to root and install Ubuntu on Google Glass.

Developing…

Filed under: Wearables, Mobile, Google

Comments

Over the last several weeks the Syrian Electronic Army has made a nuisance of itself (again), serving as a sort of annoying prankster who is repeatedly ordered to go stand in the corner. The organization is reportedly responsible for quite a number of hacks, with The Onion having been one of its unlucky victims. The humor website pinpointed the source of its infiltration and has revealed precisely how it happened, adding in a few pieces of advice for other media outlets to help combat the attacks.

Last month, the Syrian Electronic Army claimed credit for a few different compromised accounts. On April 21, the organization said it was responsible for the hacking of several CBS Twitter accounts, and a week later it went after The Guardian’s Twitter accounts, sending out tweets in its own favor. It didn’t take long for another compromised account to surface, this time being E! Online’s Twitter account, where the hackers spread false information about singer Justin Bieber before proclaiming in another tweet that fans had been trolled.

Its latest target was The Onion, which was digitally infiltrated this past Monday by the SEA, something that was originally suspected to be a joke given the nature of the company. That notion was laid to rest on Wednesday when The Onion posted a series of screenshots and URLs detailing precisely how the organization compromised its Twitter account, revealing that the hack – as with previous ones – had been accomplished via a few different phishing methods.

The attack was initiated via emails sent to The Onion employees containing a link that, with a quick glance, appeared to be from The Washington Post on content about The Onion. When clicked, however, the link took the recipient to the URL “hackwordpresssite.com/theonion.php,” which then redirected again to one requesting Google App login information, after which point it took the victim full circle back to Gmail. Only a few employees received the emails, and at least one was fooled by it, resulting in the second phase of the attack.

Using the employee’s compromised email, the SEA sent messages to other The Onion employees early in the morning containing another link that again requested Google login information. Of those targeted, one of the individuals who fell for it had the login information for The Onion’s social media accounts, including Twitter.

The Onion notified employees of the breech and sent emails instructing workers to reset their passwords, unaware that one of their accounts was still compromised. Via that account, the SEA sent an email to all but those involved in the IT department with a link said to be a password-reset URL. A couple people fell for the second link, with both of their accounts then being used by the hackers to take control of The Onion’s Twitter account. Because of this, the company required all Google Apps passwords to be reset company wide, but not before posting a humorous jab at the SEA.

In summary, The Onion advises other media companies to avoid such attacks by taking such steps as employee education on phishing, isolating social media account logins, feeding tweets through a third-party application, and having access to all employees outside of corporate email accounts.

SOURCE: The Onion

The Onion pegs Syrian Electronic Army hacks on phishing schemes is written by Brittany Hillen & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.